The Shoardian issue VI

The Shoardian

Issue VI Spring 2013 Produced by MGS History Students

WHAT IF?

From the Editor

Spring 2013│ The Shoardian 2

FROM THE EDITOR

H ello and welcome to the sixth edition of The

Shoardian. May I thank you for picking

one up. Following on from the themed

nature of the last two issues this Spring

2013 edition will focus on the what ifs of history.

Counterfactual history gives us the opportunity to

examine the turning points of the past and allow us to

have a better understanding of history in general. It

should not be taken for granted that the world is what

it is today; it has been shaped by the actions, desires

and mistakes of people and simple twists of fate. I

hope that through the articles in this issue you will

develop a greater understanding of the

unpredictability of events and that you will have a

greater appreciation of history.

This issue also has an interview with Dr Till Geiger

discerning the Cold War and Dr Patrick Hagopian on

the Vietnam War– ideal for Sixth Formers. There are

also book reviews as well as reports from Year 9 boys

on a trip to the Imperial War Museum North.

While on the subject of history outside the classroom,

I would also like to make a mention of the Archives

room, next to the Memorial Hall. It contains artefacts

from the history of the school (and more besides) and

the archivists often put on exhibitions. Boys are

welcome to enter on most days. Room 25 also has the

a bookcase full of magazines, from the present dating

back to the 1950s, meaning that you could learn

almost every conceivable aspect of history from the

contents of that room. There is also the Senior History

Society led by sixth formers that meet every

Wednesday and offer (usually) intelligent debate on a

historical topic. I hope that you read through this

issue of The Shoardian with interest and that it

sparks a desire for investigating history that is not

covered in the classroom. It could even inspire you to

contribute with an article for the next edition! If It

does, please read page 52, which will show you how to

contact the team. I hope you enjoy Issue VI of The

Shoardian.

Harrison Edmonds

The Shoardian

A product of the Manchester

Grammar School.

Editor: Harrison Edmonds

Deputy Editors: Will Barnes, Josh

Ellis & Sam Heath

Staff: Mr Ashley Hern

& Mrs Eleanor Carter

Contributors: Mo Abdah

Greg Alexander

George Alldred

Richard Birch

Ryan Emerson

Jamie Horton

Tom Makin

Tayyeb Shiekh

Special Thanks: Ed Green

Dr Till Geiger

Dr Patrick Hagopian

The Shoardian, named in honour of the

legendary history teacher Mr Shoard, is

an (almost) entirely student written and

student produced journal. If you would

like to write for the next edition, please

contact the editor (edmoha-y07). Many

thanks to all those who wrote articles for

this edition.

Front Cover, 1st Row: Franco, Guy Fawkes, Napoleon;

2nd Row: Richard III, Von Schlieffen, Malcom X; 3rd

Row: Francisco Solano López , Chiang Kai–Shek, Al-

fred, Prince of Windischgratz

Contents

3 Spring 2013│ The Shoardian

The Shoardian

Spring 2013

Volume VI

2

From the Editor

4 What If? Part 1 What if Franco hadn’t emerged as leader of Spain in 1939? Ryan Emerson looks at the possibilities if the fascist did not take over

24 Reviews & Interviews Interview with Dr Till Geiger Dr Till Geiger met The Shoardian and shared his views on why he studies history and in particular the Cold War

26

Review Section The world of historical literature is examined critically by sixth formers and Year 9s recollect their trip to the IWMN

12 What if the Habsburg Empire had collapsed in 1848? Jamie Horton investigates the 1848 revolutions and the effects they could have had on central Europe

8 What if Napoleon had achieved victory at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805? George Alldred examines this turning point of the Napoleonic Wars

16 What if the Gunpowder Plot had succeeded in 1605? Rahul Ravi returns to discuss one of the earliest attempted acts of terrorism and asks what would have befallen England

20

What if the Germans had won at the Battle of the Marne in 1914? Mo Abdah explores one of the few pitched battles of World War One

39 What if Malcom X hadn’t been assassinated ? Richard Birch looks at the icon of the Black Power movement

40

What if Richard III had won at Bosworth Field? Harrison Edmonds explains why Richard III was so important to the world

44 What would China be like now if Chiang-Kai Shek had remained in power? Greg Alexander looks at the nationalist leader of pre-communist China

48Letters to the Editor The Causes of the Indian Uprising 1857 Mrs Carter writes back to the Shoardian considering last issue’s article on the ‘Sepoy Mutiny’

30

Interview with Dr Patrick Hagopian Dr Patrick Hagopian talks about Vietnam with The Shoardian

32 What If? Part 2

The War of The Triple Alliance Sam Heath explains how South America would be different if this conflict had had a different outcome

52 Hern’s Historical Helpline: Volcanoes and History In which a colleague of the Venerable Hern asks about the connections between history and volcanic eruptions

58 Fun & Games Find Your Perfect Wife A dubious flowchart from the (twisted )mind of Josh Ellis

59 Obituary The Legacy of Chavez Sam Heath looks at the life and rule of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez

38 The Nauruan Tragedy Sam Heath also examines the sad little island in the Pacific

What if Franco hadn’t emerged as leader of Spain in 1939?

Spring 2013 │ The Shoardian 4

Ryan Emerson examines the Spanish Civil War and explores what would have happened to

Spain if the fascist dictator did not take power


T he history of Spain since the start of the

Civil War in 1936 has been defined by

Franco. Not only did he rid Spain of the

threat of communists and anarchists, rule the

country as a personal dictatorship until 1975 while

carefully balancing himself skilfully between the

monarchists and the Falange (Spanish Fascist

Party), but he has inevitably shaped what Spain is

today. Although not the absolute monarchy of the

movimiento (the movement encompassing all the

groups of nationalist Spain) that he wanted to

follow him, Spain is a monarchy nonetheless with

Juan Carlos, grandson of Alfonso XIII and his

chosen successor, as King. So it would be interesting

to imagine what would have happened to a Spain

that has not been defined and shaped by the

Caudillo. There are a number of possibilities as to

what would have happened depending on the

circumstances, had Franco not come to complete

power in April 1939, if there was no uprising in

1936, no Generalísimo and no Victory.

What if there had simply been no uprising?

Had Franco, Mola, Goded and Queipo de Llano

under the leadership of Sanjurjo, the leading and

most influential Spanish generals, not decided to

rise up in July 1936, what would have happened?

After all, it had been five years since the declaration

of the republic, when Alfonso XIII had fled Spain,

and nothing had been done about the republic which

was seen by most of the right as nothing more than

unconstitutional treason. In fact the leading

generals had positively invited the King, who had

lost the support of the Guardia Civil and the

general people, to leave. After the dictatorship of

Primo de Rivera, backed up by monarchical support,

Left– UGT Propaganda

Below– Franco, 1939

in Madrid


5 Spring 2013 │ The Shoardian

the hostility to monarchy was too great to ignore.

With assurances that their own position would be

very safe in the republic, no sooner had the King

left than they were saluting the flag and singing El

Himno de Riego. With the narrow victory of the

Popular Front (a political group of most left and

centre-left parties) in the 1936 elections, mainly

socialists and republicans, and the election of the

committed republican Azaña to the Presidencia in

1933, so any uprising of the Falange that

November in 1936, with only 6800 votes in the

election and without any police support, would

easily have been crushed without the essential

support of the Army of Africa and foreign aid from

Germany and Italy which were essential in

Franco‘s own victory. The Falange had begun to

plot since they started to be targeted by the new

Popular Front government, José Antonio Primo de

Rivera (the leader) being imprisoned in Alicante on

July 6. With the passing of the Basque Autonomy

Statute in October 1936 and the likely passing of a

further Galician Statute already planned by PM

Casares Quiroga, the power of the left would have

seemed unstoppable. With the death of leading

monarchist José Calvo Sotelo by the police and the

near collapse of CEDA (the catholic conservative

party) and Gil Robles, the only hope for a

traditional catholic Spain lay with the army, thus

it seems easy to say that a leftist Spain would have

survived, without the military uprising. But, in all

fairness, as the 1931-33 period showed clearly, the

problem of the Left in Spain was its disunity. It

was a mixture of all degrees of people, who couldn‘t

and wouldn‘t work together. After the 1936

elections, with a surge of arson, vandalism and

church burning uncontrolled by the police, Azaña

being forced to denounce it publically, and a

radical uprising in Granada, the death toll

reaching 269, it seems very unlikely that the

republic could have kept control as people took to

the streets against the right and the church who

had kept them under control since the 1934

elections. Even had land reform been successful,

which had begun in 1932, the radicalism that had

seized the streets did nothing but spell the end for

centre-left control. With the more radical

communists and anarchists, mainly in Catalonia

and Andalusia, kicking out landlords and forming

collectives, either the centre-left went with the

flow, as Azaña, the moderate President, then PM

had done in 1931-33, in destroying the power of the

church in Spain and beginning to introduce land

reform , or they tried to take control themselves

with the civil and assault guard, in which case the

uncontrolled violence would have been directed

against the relatively wealthy elite in the Cortes.

Thus it would create a situation where without the

excuse of defence against the army uprising, the

government would not have been able to keep

control as it did in the civil war, where it had done

so albeit officially. Thus we would be back at stage

one, where to keep control, which was nearly

nonexistent in the uproar before the rising, the

government would either need the army support

who would be only too happy to crush the radical

left, take control with government support and

dissolve the republic, which the majority had

always intended to do, replacing it with a

military dictatorship, or support the radical

left against the right and provoke army

intervention later when the leading generals

saw their position as under threat, both cases

leading to civil war. Thus, the government

would not have been able to keep control in

Spain, with the working class masses

demanding revolutionary change during the

world wide depression on the one side and the

rightist, traditionalist catholic elite on the

other, both powerful forces, much more

powerful than the centre-left itself, which had

little popular support. Thus war was,

essentially, inevitable.

Had Sanjurjo, the leading general then

in exile, not died in a plane crash as he did at

the start of the civil war in 1936, while

returning from exile in Portugal, would

Franco be in charge? If Sanjurjo had survived

then any victory of the army later would be

dominated by Sanjurjo, a traditional fervent

monarchist and the elected leader of the

Manuel Azaña


Spring 2013 │ The Shoardian 6

uprising and Franco would be on a level

similar to the other generals. It was only with

the death of Sanjurjo and later Mola in June

1937 that gave Franco the opportunity to take

effective control of the army and then to unite

the Carlists and the Falange into his Movimiento

Nacional. But, without the title of Generalísimo,

and control of the army, so a single dictatorship

would not have formed. It is far more likely that

Sanjurjo and the generals collectively would have

formed a dictatorship similar to that of Miguel

Primo de Rivera after his Pronunciamiento in

1923, which they intended to and not a collective

―movimiento‖ of the army, monarchist groups and

Falangists, Franco‘s creation to keep himself in

power and deny the monarchy it‘s return while he

flirted with fascism. An openly monarchist

military command of conservative generals would

more likely return control to the King, as was the

overall aim than one man with absolute power.

With similar purges of communists and anarchists,

who would have fled or been killed in the war, still

likely under a military dictatorship, it would have

been possible to give the crown back to the King

earlier. Without Franco as de facto Head of State,

the leading generals would be much less inclined to

Falangist and Carlist mutterings, with only 35000

and 42000 troops respectably compared to the

600000 overall. Without the fascist influence of the

Falange, it would be unlikely that the King of the

liberal monarchy, whether on the throne or not,

would side with Hitler (or let the generals side

with Hitler), despite likely aid in the Civil War to

overt the threat of communism, especially after the

country had been battered by internal strife and

civil war and considering the strong monarchical

connections with Britain through his wife Victoria

Eugenie of Battenberg and the lack of ideological

support of the elites for widespread fascist reforms.

Thus, it would in all likelihood remain neutral in

the war. With the end of the war, the leading

generals, like Franco, would have feared American

intervention to bring down the dictatorship and

without the strength, skill and popular support for

Franco which kept him in power after the war,

thus the stage would have been set for the transfer

of power, with post-war pressures, to Juan, son of

Alfonso and the recreation of a constitutional

monarchical system to create the legitimacy

needed, with US security guarantees, i.e. NATO

and huge economic support in the form of the

Marshall Plan, which was denied to Franco‘s

Spain, to protect against communist subversion.

Thus Spain could have rejoined the west much

earlier and profited from the huge support of US

loans and aid to rebuild the devastated metallurgy

industry of the Basque Country and textile

industry of Catalonia and produce the economic

wealth needed to prevent the industrial and

agricultural strife that had plagued both Alfonso

and the republic, and would also plague Franco

until the Spanish miracle (a period of economic

boom) in 1959. Whether it would be a true

democracy is hard to say, but Juan, father of Juan

Carlos, was always considered a liberal, especially

by Franco and surrounded himself with many

constitutionalists including Gil Robles. And so

what was started in 1975 with the democratisation

of Spain by Juan Carlos, could and most likely

would have happened much earlier, had Franco

not impeded national re-unity which has largely

been achieved by Juan Carlos, who until the

financial crisis in 2008 consistently achieved

approval ratings of over 70% (Centro de

Investigaciones Sociológicas) .

But, of course, what if the uprising simply

failed? Much of the success of the nationalists was

based on the essential help of German and Italian

weaponry and credit: the Condor Legion, Corpo

Truppe Volontarie and £43 million in German

funds provided the essential boost that the

Spanish Army, which couldn‘t even defeat the

tribesmen of the Rif in Morocco (1920-1926),

desperately needed. At the start of the war, it was

due to German Junkers and Italian Savoias that

the Army of Africa, stuck in Morocco, was

transported to Spain in the first major airlift in

history. The Navy had remained loyal to the

republic. An officer, Benjamin Balboa, on duty in

the military radio station had informed the navy of

the uprising, while sailors formed councils and

arrested their officers. Thus, the way across the

Straits of Gibraltar was blocked and so without

this support from the axis powers, the main army

that was needed for the push through Andalusia

onto Madrid would have been stuck in Africa,

leaving Mola and his Carlists in Pamplona and

Queipo with his tentative hold on Seville to hold

out against the recently armed working class and

police onslaught, who had already defeated the

uprising in Madrid and Barcelona. Similarly, what

if the republicans had won the battle of the Ebro,

their attempt to reconnect the centre with cut off

Catalonia, thus halting Franco‘s march on

Anarchy in

Barcelona in

1933



Cataluña and the vital industry of Barcelona?

What if Léon Blum and his own French popular

front had secured itself in the National Assembly

and sent thousands of crack French troops in

defence of the republic, similar to that which

happened in 1823? No matter how, what would

have happened? Would there have been a truce,

had stalemate continued? Unlikely. After the

advance on Madrid and the 3 year stalemate, the

battle of the Corunna road and later Guadalajara

doing nothing but chewing up vital men and

supplies, Franco utterly refused to compromise.

His head relied on a nationalist victory and so he

would never have agreed to one, just as the

republicans never gave up claiming that they were

the rightful government (until they accepted Juan

Carlos in 1977). But what if there was total

disaster for Franco. Had Franco fled in exile to

friendly Portugal, and the Army of Africa

surrendered, what would have become of the

republic. The problem again is infighting. With the

working class armed in pro-soviet communist/

anarchist fashion, the left republic would likely

have had to adapt to the Soviet line, considering

that most of the support had come from USSR, it

would have to have allied in some way to the USSR

to avoid isolation and rebuild its battered economy,

while hoping that national solidarity would stop

the increasingly extreme socialists/UGT (Unión

General de Trabajadores) and the anarchists/CNT

(Confederación Nacional de Trabajo), who had

already begun setting up collectives in Aragón,

from taking control. In the war it could have tried

to remain neutral, fearing a repeat of the civil war,

especially considering the economic and political

problems that would have existed, but the last

thing that Hitler needed was a country, socialist in

all but name, on his borders. An extreme left Spain

would not have survived Hitler‘s march across

Europe. In fact, it was Franco who stopped them

marching through Spain and cutting off the Allies

in the Mediterranean. By seizing Gibraltar which

would all but destroy Anglo-French hold of North

Africa, it would open the way for German-Italian

forces to seize the oil rich Arabia and Persia which

the British, struggling against the Japanese on its

Indian border wouldn‘t have been able to cope

with. After the war, it was an excuse used by

Franco that he saved Gibraltar for the allies which

in all fairness would have fallen had the German

War Machine decided to march over the divided

and devastated republic and installing in its place

a pro-axis, whether monarchist or Falangist,

government in its place. It is not at all wrong to

over-estimate the importance of Gibraltar which

gave the allies control of the Mediterranean and so

had the republic survived the civil war, it would

not, in all likeliness have survived WW2. Of course

had the allies turned it around and won, by some

miracle, then Spain, occupied by the allies, would

like Italy and West Germany have been remodelled

as a capitalist democracy, in opposition to the USSR

and quickly rebuilt and economic stability created.

Considering that the monarchy had fallen in Italy in 1946,

it would be highly unlikely that Spain would have

become a monarchy but, yet again, it would have

become something new in its history, a democracy.

In some ways, it‘s a blessing that Franco

won the civil war. For a politicised Spain would

have been a thorn in the side of everyone,

considering its importance geographically and the

war raging around it, at least with Franco there

was stability in Spain, something that it hadn‘t

really had since the dictatorship of Miguel Primo

de Rivera and it‘s thanks, in a way, to Franco‘s

strange military, monarchical and fascist

dictatorship that Spain did survive and democracy

does exist today. Of course it is not Franco‘s genius

or brilliance that created a democracy for he

deliberately halted the return of the monarchy for

36 years after the civil war, till his death and

always despised democracy as a weak system. But

perhaps what Spain needed was a relatively

conservative hard man, to stop it destroying itself

in bitter internal fighting. For indeed, Spain could

have ended up in many forms, but what is it today?

A democracy.

Want to know more?

If Ryan inspired an interest in the Spanish

Civil War, why not try:

‘Franco’ by Paul Preston

(New York: Basic Books)

‘The Spanish Civil War’ by Hugh Thomas

(London: Penguin Books)

Could the

democratic

Spain of today

have been

created by

Franco’s

dictatorship?

What if Napoleon had achieved victory at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805?


A fter the end of the Peace of Amiens

on the 18th May 1803, France

wanted to weaken and humiliate

the British by destroying their

navy, effectively wiping them out of the war.

Many have also argued that Napoleon had

the intention of invading Britain,as he had a

large army based in Boulogne, northern

France; this scenario did not occur in the end

due to the combined armies of the Russian

and the Austrian forces that were massing in

the East. However, despite this theory, it is

equally likely that Napoleon merely wanted

to ―disable‖ Britain and force her out of the

war. He was unsuccessful in achieving this

goal and Britain ended up continuing the War

of the Third Coalition and causing havoc in

the Peninsular War, which arguably

eventually led to Napoleon‘s downfall. It also

led to France pouring lots of resources and

men into shipbuilding in multiple ports (he

produced a fleet of 80 ships by the time of his

fall from power in 1814), and into quelling the

British in Spain. So, the main question is:

what if Napoleon had succeeded in his aims of

destroying the Royal Navy?

The 21st of October 1805 was the day on

which Britain‘s 27 ships, commanded by Lord

Admiral Horatio Nelson (a true master of

naval combat, independent in outlook,

ambitious and having extraordinary moral

WHAT IF NAPOLEON HAD ACHIEVED VICTORY AT

THE BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR IN 1805?

George Alldred explores one of the turning points of the Napoleonic Wars and asks what

would have happened if the French won

The Battle of

Trafalgar

was a turning

point in the

Napoleonic

Wars



courage) annihilated the French-Spanish fleet

of 33 ships, commanded by Admiral

Villeneuve (a defeatist admiral who lacked

confidence ever since the battle of the Nile

which he narrowly escaped from). The battle

of Trafalgar was Napoleon‘s first disastrous

defeat and it established Britain as the

dominant naval force for the next 100 years.

The battle led to the death of over 1700

British and over 6000 casualties, but in the

long term, the effects were much more

significant. Therefore another key question is:

did the Battle of Trafalgar have a significant

impact on Napoleon‘s campaign? Was it key

to his downfall or were the events to follow

inescapable anyway?

Would a win at Trafalgar have had a

significant impact on Napoleon‘s conquest of

Europe? There are many different views on

the battle‘s significance; for example,

distinguished French scholars such as Jean

Tulard say that 'after Trafalgar, the emperor

was beaten, though he did not yet know it‘,

and other scholars preferred to dismiss the

battle ‗as an unfortunate but essentially

marginal affair‘, Both of these argue two

separate opinions on the significance of the

battle. In order to determine the significance

of any historical event, it is advantageous to

use counterfactual history and discuss what

could have happened if things had turned out

differently.

In terms of the populace of the French

empire, a French victory in 1805 would have

boosted the morale of French troops

everywhere. Knowing that they had

humiliated the British and become master of

the seas would boost the war effort on the

front line and at the homes in France. It

would also have granted the French empire a

feeling of security (as the only country that

could have invaded the French empire by sea

would have been Britain, which would not

have been possible anyway due to their

miniscule army) as with the Royal navy wiped

out, the French could feel safe, boosting

morale; this could have led to an increase in

production as many more people in the

empire would be trying to help the war effort

and their would have been perhaps an

increase in conscription for the army. With

regard to the economy of the French empire,

the French empire would have been granted

multiple trade routes (which had all been

previously blockaded by the British) via

which to import exotic, luxury items from

colonies in the Caribbean, increasing the

standard of living of the French populace.

If Napoleon had been able to utilize such

trade routes, it is most likely that he wouldn‘t

have used them to their full economic

potential (as Napoleon believed that real

wealth derived from land and people, while

trade was essentially parasitic) and so the

French empire may not have changed as

much as it could have and therefore this is

not a very significant consequence. However,

we can tell that trade is essential for

economic growth from the way in which the

French empire‘s economy suffered after he

introduced the Continental System (a system

where no countries controlled by France were

permitted to trade with Britain, it was an

attempt to cripple Britain‘s economy) in 1806.

It contributed to British exports falling

between 25% and 55% compared to pre-1806

levels. As a consequence, it caused the people

of European nations to lose a variety of

luxury items such as cotton textiles, coffee,

sugar and tobacco and more importantly,

trade in southern France drastically suffered

and staple food prices rose dramatically. With

the Royal Navy destroyed, there would have

been no need for this Continental System,

therefore leading to French trade and

economy not having to have suffered.

Furthermore Napoleon would not have been

wasting his empire‘s resources and finances

in the years after the battle, trying to

construct a new navy with the view of

challenging the British again. All of these

economic gains from a victory at Trafalgar

could have led to many military and social

impacts. For example; with more money and

resources, Napoleon would have been able to

recruit many more troops and construct many

more armaments, perhaps leading to more

victories, a more sustainable empire and

perhaps even the continuation of Napoleon‘s

conquest in Europe. Also from a social

perspective, a larger French economy would

have raised the standard of living for many of

the people under Napoleon‘s rule and so

would lead to less discontent in the French

empire and more support for Napoleon.

Militarily, if Napoleon had succeeded in

Nelson died in

the battle

aboard his flag-

ship, HMS Vic-

tory



destroying the Royal navy, it would have

granted Napoleon complete, unrivalled, naval

domination. It would have allowed him to

transport his troops with ease from one

location to another and could have perhaps

allowed him to expand his colonies or

continue his conquests into Africa without

being attacked by the British fleets. Also,

with the British out of the war, there is a

possibility that the Peninsular war in Spain

might never have happened (as Napoleon

could have easily have crushed the Spanish

guerilla forces if they had not had Britain

aiding them) and so this then could have led

to France not having to pour resources and

men into Spain, and it could have led to them

instead being concentrated on the Eastern

front, fighting the much bigger threat of

Russia, leading to a possible victory at

Moscow and possibly after that, victories in

all of Asia, as Napoleon and his French forces

could now focus on the Eastern front rather

than in Spain. Ultimately however, this

seems improbable as there are many

unrelated reasons as to why Napoleon‘s rule

of Spain was viewed as being disastrous. An

example being in Napoleon‘s decision to put

his incompetent brother, Joseph Bonaparte,

on the throne of Spain in 1806. Also, the

prime reason for the French defeat in Moscow

was mainly due to the lack of supply, even

though the French armies greatly

outnumbered those of the Russians, therefore

a win at Trafalgar would have most probably

still have led to a loss in Moscow.

Nevertheless, the battle of Trafalgar and the

removal of the British from the Third

Coalition would have led Russia into

diplomatic negotiations with Napoleon and so

a war on the East could not have had to be

fought. An increase in military power and

troops could lead to more control over the

nations which he was conquering and less

discontent throughout his empire. A final

consequence of a victory at Trafalgar would

have been that Napoleon could have invaded

Britain. This seems like a probable

consequence as Britain‘s army was very

small. There is evidence that from 1803 to

1805, an army of 200,000 men

known as the Armée de l'Angleterre, was

gathered and trained at camps at Boulogne,

Bruges and Montreuil and a large "National

Flotilla‖ of invasion barges was built in

Channel ports along the coasts of France and

Holland. However an invasion would never

have occurred regardless of a victory, due to

the massing forces of Austria and Russia in

the east that Napoleon had to deal with.

Furthermore, Napoleon would had to govern

Britain and send troops to control Britain

(which is likely to have become an unruly

country to govern considering the British

were strongly nationalistic and ‗anti-French‘)

and so more resources and troops would be

spent trying desperately to govern Britain

than they would receive from the country.

This reinforces the fact that an invasion of

Britain seems unlikely, had Napoleon won at

Trafalgar. However, the possibility of an

invasion is indisputably a very significant

consequence.

As for the consquences for Britain,

there would be numerous different impacts if

the battle had had a different outcome.

However, unlike the French, a loss for the

British could have been disastrous. The

British economy heavily relied on trade and

credit and so without its navy, Britain‘s trade

routes could have been easily blockaded by

foreign countries, rendering her without an

income; also, Britain would eventually lose all

her colonies in India and the Caribbean and

with them, her source of income. This would

effectively cripple Britain‘s economy

rendering her powerless. Without her navy,

trade or colonies, Britain would just become

‗another island‘; she would lose her world

status and her dominance and could be

effectively ‗bullied‘ by foreign countries. A lull

in the country‘s economy would have led to

even fewer soldiers and even more

susceptibility to invasion. Without an army

Britain would not have been able to help any

further in the war of the third coalition and so

would lose its world status even further. The

second consequence would be that Britain

would have been defenseless. For years

Britain has utilized the seas around her in

order to defend herself by creating vast

Lord Admiral

Horatio Nelson

commanded the

British Fleet



navies. However without this Royal navy,

Britain would have become very susceptible

to invasion from foreign countries (especially

France). Britain also might have become

demoralized and humiliated which would

have led to political instability. This

instability could have led to a series of strikes

and a lull in production (leading to a slippery

slope of economic decline) and in the worst

case scenario (however, still very likely) a

revolution or even civil war. This would have

led to an even further slump in the country‘s

economy and morale.

The third and perhaps most

detrimental consequence on a more global

scale would be the delay (or even the halting)

of the industrial revolution in Britain, which

would lead to a less civilized Europe as

industries which drove economies and

sciences in the early modern period may not

have developed (e.g. cotton production). Also,

the key financial ideas of the capitalist Adam

Smith would not have developed fully. This

system of investment and private banking led

to people wanting to further the

industrialisation process and gain money. The

competition created a boom in economic

expansion. This is just one example of the

many consequences that an invasion of

Britain would have caused on the modern

world. An invasion of Britain therefore could

have led to the world not being as advanced

as it is now in the 21st century. This would

truly be a disastrous consequence on modern

civilization, in all aspects of life.

So, after looking at a few of the possible

consequences of an alternate outcome to the

Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, we can conclude

that it would have led to significant

consequences that could have changed the

course of the whole 19th century. It would not

only have impacted politics and economics but

the day to day lives of millions across the

globe from Britain and France to Russia and

even places seemingly unrelated such as

India. This evidence proves the indisputable

significance of this historical event and

provides an example of the usefulness of

using counterfactual history. Counterfactual

history is an alternative, controversial

method of tackling history with one group

arguing that it is entertaining, but not an

effective method on analyzing history

(probably due to its speculative nature) and

another arguing that it is essential to help

our understanding of the significant impacts

of key historic events. Based on this essay, it

is sound to argue that counterfactual is, in

fact, a useful method of analyzing history.

Want to know more?

For more on Trafalgar and the Napoleonic Wars

try:

‘Trafalgar in History: A Battle and Its Afterlife’

edited by David Cannadine

(Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan)

‘The Napoleonic Empire’ by Geoffrey Ellis

(Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan)

Emperor

Napoleon

Bonaparte

Admiral

Villeneuve was

in command of

the combined

French and

Spanish Fleet

What if the Habsburg Empire had collapsed in 1848?



Jamie Horton, one of the International Baccalaureate cohort, asks what would have

happened if these revolutions in the Austrian Empire had succeeded

W hat would have been the

consequences if the Habsburg

Empire had fallen in 1848, as

seemed likely at the time?

What would it have done to the balance of

power in Europe, and how would it have

affected the development of different

countries? This article is going to examine all

these questions, and investigate the

possibility that this collapse could have

established Germany as the major world rival

to the United States in the 20th century.

So, what was the Habsburg Empire?

Probably better known as the Austrian

Empire, this vast state compromising many

different nationalities was ruled over by the

Habsburg dynasty. Founded in 1278, the

Habsburg Empire emerged as a great power

in the early 18th century after struggling and

triumphing over the Ottoman Empire. In

1848, its territory stretched from Switzerland

and northern Italy, up to Bohemia, down to

the borders of Serbia and Bosnia and east to

border with the Russian Empire. This

patchwork of 11 different ethnic and national

groups was ruled from Vienna, under the

power of the Emperor, who at the start of

1848 was Ferdinand I. Austria was seen as a

crucial linchpin of Europe, and played a vital

role in maintaining the all-important balance

of power among the Great Powers (Britain,

France, Russia, Prussia, Austria) as laid

down at the Congress of Vienna in 1815,

where the mainly conservative rulers of the

strongest countries looked to restore and

secure peace after the defeat of Napoleon.

Austria was expected to act as a bulwark

against both French and Russian

The Haps-

burg Em-

pire in

1848



expansionism.

1848 was a turbulent year for Europe,

with a tide of revolutions that shook the

foundations of conservative rule. The two

ideologies of liberalism and nationalism that

were unleashed by the French Revolution

were playing an ever more important role as

the 19th century went on, and the internal

tensions in many countries came to a

flashpoint in 1848, with widespread civil

unrest. Sparked by a revolution in France on

23rd/24th February, liberals across Europe

rushed to act and a crisis quickly ensued.

Hungary‘s most prominent national leader,

Lajos Kossuth, called for Hungarian

independence; revolution flooded through

Vienna, causing the staunch symbol of

conservatism that was the Austrian

Chancellor, Metternich, to resign; uprisings

in Italy took place, with the state of Piedmont

declaring war on Austria. The Austrian

government was in turmoil, and the Emperor

fled the capital (after granting a constitution),

leaving the city in the hands of the

revolutionaries. The Habsburgs were

eventually able to regain control, and re-

impose centralised rule, due to their decisive

military victories over the revolutionaries.

General Windischgratz brutally quashed an

uprising in Prague, and marched to take back

Vienna whilst his compatriot Radetzky was

busy defeating Piedmont in northern Italy.

The Hungarians were eventually beaten in

1849, and autocratic rule and order were

restored to the Austrian Empire.

But what if? What if the Habsburgs had not

been able to regain their authority in 1848?

Let us say, for example, that the Austrians

lost at the battle of Custozza (23 July 1848) in

northern Italy. More men would have been

sent to Italy to reverse the loss, leaving the

Austrian army weaker on other fronts,

possibly leading to their defeat in Hungary,

and a subsequent lack of ability to establish

control over their territory. A defeat at

Custozza would probably have inspired

revolutionaries across the Habsburg Empire,

and illustrated the fact that the Austrians

were truly vulnerable to the rest of their

subjects. (From this point on, hypotheticals

will be referred to as if they actually took

place to avoid repetition of phrases like would

have/could have – actual events will be duly

signposted).

A Piedmontese victory at Custozza led to the

aggrandisement of Piedmont in Italy, and the

development of a state covering the entire

northern part of the peninsula. Venetia and

Lombardy were only too willing to join with

Piedmont after the defeat of the Austrians,

and without Austrian support, the Central

Duchies were quickly subsumed into the

growing power of the kingdom of Charles

Albert (King of Piedmont). This left Piedmont

in a dominating position to control and

influence events in Italy, and even to begin to

play a larger role in the affairs of Europe.

The defeat of the Austrians at Custozza

emboldened the Hungarians, who

possessed a relatively strong military

force in their own right – they were able

to drive the Austrians out of Budapest in

1849 after it had been taken (actual

event). This proves their inherent

strength anyway, but a differing scenario

against a weakened Austria may have led

to more long-term positive results than

was actually the case. Despite fierce

opposition from the Austrian military,

Hungary was able both to establish itself

as an independent state with its own

constitution and representative body, and

to beat off the Russian troops that came

to help Austria (as actually happened)

and eventually bring an end to the

Ferdinand I,

Emperor until

1848 (note the

unfortunate

consequences of

inbreeding )



fighting by defeating the pro-Austrian

conservatives, who were unable to have

as much Austrian support as they

expected because of Austrian defeats in

both Italy and Hungary.

The collapse of the Habsburgs had a

monumental effect on Prussia and the

German states as a whole. Without

Austria acting as a counterbalance,

Prussia was able to move into a position

of complete dominance over the German

states, founded upon her pre-existing

economic supremacy that she possessed

on account of her leadership of the

Zollverein (an economic/customs union of

German states with Prussia at its head –

Austria was not a member). Due to

Austria‘s collapse, Prussia was able to

use her strength to push for German

unification that included the German-

speaking but Austrian ruled parts of the

G e r m a n C o n f e d e r a t i o n ( t h e

Grossdeutschland solution – ―Greater

Germany‖). This didn‘t happen

immediately, but with Austria no longer

posing a significant long-term challenge

to Prussia‘s authority, this unification

was practically inevitable. Without the

conservatism espoused by Metternich and

backed up by the power and political

influence of the Austrian Empire, the

ideology of nationalism was able to play a

much more important role in creating

popular support for unification. This

much expanded German state caused a

massive shift in the balance of power in

Europe, as the newly formed Germany,

led by Prussia and the Kaiser, began to

dominate affairs on the continent.

Russia also benefited from the demise of

Austria, especially in the Balkans. At this

time, Russia was keen to portray herself

as the champion of pan-Slavism, and act

as a protector of the interests of the

Slavic people. This can be seen as merely

a convenient excuse for Russia to expand

her political influence and possibly her

territory in Eastern Europe. Without the

power of Austria to restrain her, Russia

was quick to increase her sphere of

influence, especially over the new state of

Hungary and the other, weaker Balkan

states. This, along with Russia‘s desire to

take advantage of another weak state in

the Ottoman Empire, caused

consternation amongst Britain and

France and led to a conflict between

Russia and an alliance of France, Great

Britain and the Kingdom of Piedmont (as

actually happened with the Crimean

War, but without Austria this would

probably have taken place sooner, as

Russian expansionism would not have

had the same checks on it). Russia was

defeated in this conflict, but she still

possessed major geopolitical advantages

because of the weak and vulnerable

states on her borders.

It is possible to argue that the fall of the

Habsburg Empire in 1848 may not have

made that much of an impact in the

grand scheme of things, as after all, Italy

Lajos Kossuth

declaring

Hungary's

independence

Alfred, Price of

Windischgratz

commanded

the loyalist

troops in Pra-

gue



and Germany were still unified in the

actual events of the second half of the

19th century, and Austria was declining

as a power anyway. However, this would

severely underestimate the role that the

Austrian Empire was playing at this

time. It was the Austrian presence and

political leadership of the German Diet (a

federal parliament) that acted as a firm

hindrance to the growing power of

Prussia, and meant that it was necessary

for someone like Bismarck to manipulate

and manage the situation in order to

achieve the territorial gains that Prussia

made. Without this hindrance, Prussia

would have been able to stamp her

authority over the other German states

and take both a diplomatic and economic

leadership role over the other German

states, which would have led sooner or

later to a more or less unified German

state under Prussian control. What would

happen next would rest on whether or not

Germany would look to engineer further

conflict in order to increase her already

sizeable territory. As Austria would not

have the strength to be interfering in the

Balkans after the collapse of her empire,

it is difficult to see how a war on a similar

scale to the First World War could start,

and the system of alliances that proved so

crucial to increasing the scale of WW1

would work more in Germany‘s favour

without a weak Austrian ally that needed

to be propped up and supported.

Realistically, a German state of the size

envisaged here would almost certainly

emerge triumphant in any European war

due to her strength in industry and

manpower.

Germany would look to increase her

standing on the world stage, and it is

very possible to see her overtaking

Britain as a world leading power and

challenging the United States for global

supremacy. Germany would dominate the

continent economically, and she would be

a serious rival, if not even stronger than

America in terms of economic influence.

Do not forget that without the massive

boost to her economy provided by her

actions in the First World War, America

would not have been in anyway near the

position of such superiority that she

achieved in the 1920s. Before WW1,

America was growing rapidly as an

economic power but she was still second

to Britain (with a much smaller German

state than the one that would have been

created by these events also rivalling

those two).

To finish, the collapse of the Habsburg

Empire in 1848 would have created a

totally different Europe, which would

have been much more German

dominated. But would this Germany have

been involved in two worldwide conflicts

in the 20th century? That is a topic that

can be argued at length, but when it all

comes down to it, history pivots infinite

times on what if questions, and any

analysis of a counterfactual past, just like

any analysis of the future, is more than

likely to be wrong.

A popular

uprising in

Vienna

Want to know more?

If Jamie has inspired a passion for all things

Austrian, try:

‘The 1848 Revolutions ’ by Peter S. Jones

(London: Addison-Wesley Longman)

‘1848: Year of Revolution’ by Mike Rapport

(New York: Basic Books)

What if the Gunpowder Plot had succeeded in 1605?


What if the Gunpowder

Plot had succeeded in

1605?

One of the most audacious plots in British history is analysed by Rahul Ravi, who asks if

the Catholic conspirators had succeeded in blowing up Parliament and the King, what

would have happened next and what effects it would have had on England and the rest of

the British Isles

O n the 5th November

1605, Guy Fawkes

was brought into

the bedroom of King

James I of England for

interrogation. The gunpowder

plot had failed. It could be

argued that it was doomed to

failure from the very start,

owing to two reasons. Firstly, in

order to make a rebellion work,

it needed the support of a great

number of people, and as a

result a great number of people

could blow the whistle, which is

what happened. The chances of

this were accentuated by just

how sensational and morally

disturbing would have been to

people at the time. Secondly,

when the plot was discovered,

the gunpowder that was to be

used was discovered to be

decayed; separated into its

relatively harmless chemical

components, and so would not

even have exploded. While with

hindsight, the plot seems to

have been orchestrated with

great incompetence; both of

James I of

England and VI

of Scotland



these factors were in fact dependant

on a seemingly separate accident of

history.

The plot was originally scheduled to

meet on 3rd October, except

Parliament was postponed on that

day, due to the bubonic plague still

hanging over London. If this one

variable is removed however, there

was a very real chance that the House

of Lords would have exploded, taking

almost the entirety of Britain‘s

political elite with it. And what would

have followed?

Following the plan of the conspirators,

while Guy Fawkes was blowing up the

Houses of Parliament, the others

would capture the King‘s younger son,

Charles, flee to the Midlands and

seize the king‘s daughter Elizabeth

from her residence in Warwickshire.

She would be then be used as the

Catholic figurehead for an armed

rebellion against James‘s successor,

that would hopefully, gather support

throughout the country. In actuality,

however, the much more realistic

outcome of a successful plot would be

greatly increased persecution against

the English Roman Catholic

community. Fawkes‘ co-conspirators

continued with their plan as if it had

been successful. They tried to capture

Prince Charles but could not find him.

Even after this second hurdle had

thwarted them, they nevertheless

persevered. On top of all this, the

conspirators had also greatly

overestimated the amount of popular

support the movement would gain.

This is well demonstrated by the fact

that even as they lied to locals about

the success of the plot so far, very few

recruits joined them. They could not

even muster enough support to take

the Princess Elizabeth from her

residence, let alone create an armed

force of meaningful size.

In fact, as false news of the success of

the plot spread throughout the

country, the majority of the Catholic

population, rather than being

supportive, were appalled by the scale

of the crime. Their most likely initial

reaction would have probably been

fear of a nation of Protestant

retribution, who would have been

aware that Catholics were responsible

for both the attacks and the

kidnapping of the royal children. Had

the mass murder at Westminster been

successful, there most probably would

have been a mass murder of Catholics

by Protestants, akin to the wave of

hate that had caused the French

Catholic‘s massacre of Protestants on

St. Bartholomew‘s Day in 1572. These

Protestant vigilantes would not just

converge on the Midlands seeking the

conspirators, but also imprison or

massacre ordinary Catholics, who for

Parliament in the

late 16th century,

with James I in

centre position



obvious reasons would have been

completely unaware of the plot. The

would be tragedy of this is that one

distinguished member of the English

Catholic community, Henry Garnet,

the leader of the English Jesuits,

stumbled on the plot and mortified,

ordered them to desist. Furthermore,

Catholic powers in Europe, whilst

being critical of this hypothetical

persecution, would probably not

respond with action, as at the time,

such brutality would be a perfectly

understandable response to the

murder of a nation‘s king, queen and

peerage.

The long term effects of a successful

gunpowder plot should also be

considered. The implications it would

have had on future British history

would have been more significant.

Charles I would still succeed his

father (assuming James‘s older son

was also killed in the plot), but twenty

years earlier, at the age of four.

Charles would never have had the

difficult relationship he had with his

father, and as a result, would not

have veered so greatly from his

policies, and he would never have

made an ill-advised friendship with

his father‘s unpopular favourite,

Buckingham, and so would never

have tarnished the start of his reign.

At the age of four, he would probably

have been placed under the control of

a Lord Protector until he came of age,

and history tells us that the

consequences of this would have been

unpredictable, even if we knew who it

would have been. However, Harrison

is making me write more. If we

assume that the regency ran

smoothly, we could also assume that

instead of opposing his father‘s every

policy, Charles would have instead

The Catholic

conspirators of

the gunpowder

plot (below),

such as Fawkes

(above) would

have been

executed even

if the plot had

succeeded



revered the memory of his dead

parents, and most probably from a

young age, would have developed an

into l erance , even hatred o f

Catholicism. Tending towards almost

an evangelical wing of Anglicanism,

as he may well have done, would have

made him much more popular in

England and Scotland rather than the

more tolerant, Catholic friendly

attitude he actually employed. In

addition, when he lost his lands to

Catholic nations, as a devout

Protestant monarch, would have

entered into war wholeheartedly on

the Protestant side, and so would

have retained the support of the

general populace. It goes without

saying that, if this had actually been

the case, there would have been no

English Civil War during his reign, as

he could have may well been almost

Puritan himself.

However, another potential conflict

could have arisen out of Charles‘

hypothetical evangelicalism. There

quite possibly could have been a

rebellion borne out of rising

discontent in Ireland, where there

remained a Catholic majority. This

actually happened in 1641 against

O l i v e r C r o m w e l l ‘ s P u r i t a n

government and was dealt with, and

so the only difference would have been

that this would have in fact occurred

much sooner and would have most

probably been put down by the secure

and popular monarch. However, this

could have led to further political

repercussions, as once the Irish

problem had been solved by mass

evangelisation, the three Protestant

kingdoms of Scotland, England and

Ireland would have been united. Such

a state would have mirrored the

Protestant absolute monarchies of

Sweden and Prussia, and like these

kingdoms, may well have collapsed in

revolution in modern times.

But such speculation probably takes

things too far; who knows what other

variables may have come into play if

Guy Fawkes had been successful? The

immediate effects would probably

have resulted in the arrest and

execution of conspirators and perhaps

further Protestant persecution of

Catholics, so probably not that

different from what actually

happened. But the longer term effects

on government and the mind-set of

Charles I would probably be greatly

different and very much like his

character, extremely difficult to

predict.

Charles I would

have followed his

father’s policies

and would not

have become as

unpopular and

there would have

been no civil war

Want to know more?

If Rahul has spiked an interest in gun-

powder treason and plot, why not try:

‘The Gunpowder Plot: Terror And Faith

In 1605’ by Antonia Fraser

(London: Phoenix, Orion)

What if the Germans had won the Battle of the Marne 1914?


I n late 1914, when Europe was ravaged

by war and conflict, in the early days of

‘the Great War’, German troops were

marching through France as part of the

infamous ‘Schlieffen Plan’. The plan was to

invade France via Belgium in 6 weeks, which

was the estimate for how long the Russians

would take to mobilise their army. By the time

France was invaded, the Germans could deploy

their victorious armies to the eastern front

where high morale, superior skill and advanced

technology would see the invasion of Russia.

The timing, as count Schlieffen emphasised,

was absolutely crucial to the success of the plan.

If France was not invaded within 6 weeks, then

the Russians will have mobilised and the

Germans would be fighting a war on two fronts.

This, count Schlieffen predicted would result in

defeat. So, let us return to our story of the

Germans marching through France: their

resistance? The British Expeditionary Force

(BEP) and the French army. The combined

allied force resisted bravely but the Germans

were not to be stopped and enjoyed a series of

victories, notably the Battle of Mons and the

Battle of Ardennes.

This led to what was arguably the pinnacle of

the war of movement in World War I, the Battle

of the Marne. The French led by Commander-

in-chief Joseph Joffre had retreated to a line

south-east of Paris. The Germans complacent

due to their early success had even deployed

armies to the eastern front (although some argue

that this was due to the aristocrats complaining

to the Kaiser that Russians were damaging their

property in eastern German countryside), had

made a fatal mistake. In response to Joffre

ordering an attack on their right flank the

What if the Germans had won the Battle of the

Marne in 1914?

The Schlieffen Plan was a daring strategy in the beginning of World War One. Mo Abdah

examines the German tactics and the Battle of the Marne, one of the last battles before the

trenches of the Western Front to ask what would have happened if the Kaiser‟s troops had

won.

The Schlieffen

Plan foresaw both

an attack from

France and from

the Russian

Empire

What if the Germans won the Battle of the Marne 1914?


Germans split in order for some troops to fight

the French. A sizeable gap approximately 45 km

in length appeared. This was spotted by allied

reconnaissance air patrols and exploited by the

BEP and the French. The two, now separate,

German armies were caught in a classic mistake

in military science with an allied army between

the two sections of their ranks and were

defeated in the ensuing battle. It was something

of a miracle in Paris where all hope was lost,

typified by the French government migrating to

the safety of Bordeaux. Simon Galliéni a

military advisor, was credited for his heroic

efforts in Paris (much to the anger of Joffre),

where he famously ordered all Parisian taxis to

meet and transport 8000 reinforcements to the

battle taking place about 40km away from Paris

and return to Paris where they would await

payment!

The history books were written, the celebrations

were enjoyed. The allies had halted the German

onslaught! But this is where I ponder on a

different, hypothetical outcome to the battle. A

German victory. After all the Germans not only

outnumbered the combined allied forces by

about 400,000 troops, but they had firm,

organised leadership. There was constant

internal strife between the allies with Sir John

French (leader of the BEP- rather confusingly)

not getting along with Joffre. Joffre was

passionately patriotic and meant well for the

allied cause but he was rather ruthless at times,

known for sacking dozens of officers in one go.

Sir John had gone in to a sulk about Joffre for ‘a

lack of consultation’ in a time where lack of

unity was punishable by death by the Germans.

The Germans were in an excellent position to

win the battle of the Marne were it not for a

simple, simple military error. ‘What if the

Germans had won the Battle of the Marne?’ can

be divided in to three sub questions: would the

Schlieffen plan have worked? If so, would the

Germans have won the war? And if they had,

then what effect does this have on the way 20th

century Europe unfolded?

Let us focus on the first and most immediate

question: if the Germans had won at the Marne

would the Schlieffen plan have succeeded? It is

safe to assume that if the Germans had won at

the Marne that they would have gone on to

capture Paris seeing as the fighting happened

barely 40km away from the French capital and

the combined Anglo-French armies were the

last line of defence. If the Germans had indeed

conquered Paris then the chances of a successful

counter-offensive seemed very slim if not

downright impossible. The French, in their

nature would resist but Germany’s occupation

of Paris in WWII springs to mind here, where

French resistance was courageous but

unsuccessful. There would be other strongholds

in France mostly in the south such as Bordeaux,

but when the capital has been captured, history

has shown us that the most likely outcome

would be a full invasion of the country.

Diverting our attention to the eastern front, it

must be noted that the calculations that the élite

German strategists had come up with turned out

to be wrong. Russia defied their backward

economy and dire state to mobilise an

impressive 1.2 million man army before the

estimated six weeks. The dreaded idea of

fighting a war on two fronts had become a

reality. Some would therefore argue that due to

this, the Schlieffen plan was an impossibility. I

would disagree. Quality over quantity is a

perfect phrase in the context of the German

army against the Russian army. Although the

Germans where ghastly outnumbered the

soldiers had good training, were well armed and

were under clever leadership (Erich

Ludendorff). The Russian army was in a

horrendous state. Groups of soldiers shared a

single rifle and sergeants sold the military

equipment on the black market. The battle of

Tannenberg summed this up in a nutshell.

Superior military tactics from Ludendorff saw

his troops envelope the Russians in Tannenberg

Field-Marshal von

Schlieffen was Chief

of the Imperial

German General

Staff before the war

and devised the

plan to knock

France out of a

European-wide

conflict

What if the Germans had won the Battle of the Marne 1914?


and the fighting could only he described as a

massacre with the Russian 1st and 2nd armies

both decimated. Further Russian defeats at

masurian lakes and Austro-Hungarian pressure

influence my judgment that Russia was not a

problem for the Germans providing that they

could focus all their troops there. I say this

because although the Germans didn’t need

numerical advantages to win confrontations

with the Russians (their quality did the trick),

Russia is the largest country in the world and

has a huge area. The landscapes are difficult

especially during winter as the Germans of the

Nazi area learnt the hard way during operation

Barbarossa. Hefty man power is required to

conquer the geographical obstacles in

Russia. Many historians still believe that

Russia simply poses too many

geographical impediments for the armies

of the early 20th century and that it was

simple ‗un-invadable‘.

Some would argue that victory at the

Marne and the fall of Paris inevitably

meant that France would fall to the

Germans. If this is so, then the Germans

could divert the manpower to the eastern

front and a highly interesting

hypothetical situation would come up, the

Germans with access to their full armies

attempting to invade Russia. I think it

was possible. In WWII the Russians were

industrialised, much better equipped, had

the advantage of the valuable Russian

weather and had years of Stalinist

propaganda instilled in to their heads

(they were very patriotic to the

motherland). Everything was different in

World War I. Almost every advantage

listed above was reversed. The soldiers

lost whatever morale they had after

Tannenberg, had no confidence in their

superior officers and were poorly

equipped and organised. The weather

however didn‘t change and would have

been a major factor if this hypothetical

invasion had indeed happened.

The invasion of Russia was a viable

conclusion to the battle on the eastern

front in 1914 considering the horrific

state of Russia at the time. If Russia had

indeed been invaded, then the fate of

France was a foregone conclusion. This

leaves Britain as the surviving member of

the Triple Entente. I honestly think that

if the Germans had reached this degree of

success in mainland Europe, having won

the Marne, then they would have left

Britain. Britain was still the dominant

navy at this point and an invasion of the

island would in my opinion have been

unsuccessful simply due to the inferior

German navy. It must also be pointed out

that this German régime did not seek to

invade Britain. Many would argue that

the Germans were simply defending

themselves after numerous events on

their borders, including Russia and

France signing a secret treaty, instilled

paranoia in to the Germans. The role of

the United States in World War I would

be non-existent as a result of German

victory at the Marne. Technically none of

the events which dragged the US in to

war would have happened. Unrestricted

submarine warfare was a last ditch

attempt by the Germans to counter the

British barricade and this is what drew

the US in to the war. In fact, the US was

fairly undecided about which side it

supported in the war during the early

years. Woodrow Wilson was under a lot of

mixed pressure between 1914 and 1915

but USW (unrestricted submarine

warfare) unofficially made up his mind,

and that of the entire population.

Many who study critical thinking would

accuse me of the slippery slope fallacy,

but hopefully this article has emphasised

French troops

advance at the

Marne; one of the

more decisive

moments of the

Great War

What if the Germans won the Battle of the Marne 1914?


the importance of the Marne. It was a

junction to so many different outcomes

and possibilities to the war. Having

painted a vague idea of the war I

imagined if the Germans had won at the

Marne, I will briefly discuss the

possibilities of what would have

happened when the Germans won the

war (hypothetically) and the effects of

this on the 20th century as we know it.

For a start, Germany would greatly

increase its territories, most probably

into major industrial areas of France and

overseas colonies in Africa where France

had a lot of land. The Germans would

work hard to negotiate payments and

peace out of Russia and they will have

access to its vast resources. The external

affairs are rather predictable, the

internal affairs however are less so. The

power struggle which arose from the

Kaiser abstaining saw the Weimar

republic formed. The national socialists

arose from the economic mess caused by

the Wall Street crash of 1929. However If

the Germans had won the war then the

Kaiser Wilhelm II wouldn‘t have

abstained and the autocratic system of

government would have continued. This

would have essentially led to communism

being a more appealing ideology because

communism is always more appealing in

an autocracy (i.e. Russia). The

Spartacists, it must be said, may have

enjoyed more support and success if the

Kaiser had still been in power. To suggest

Germany would fall into a socialist

republic is optimistic but much more

plausible with the Kaiser in power.

Furthermore, the Wall Street crash

wouldn‘t have affected the Germans

because they wouldn‘t have borrowed

money from America for reparations as

part of the treaty of Versailles. This

means that the medium Hitler used to

gain power would be non-existent and the

existence of Nazism as a party with

leverage within 50 years of the war seems

doubtable. History has taught us that the

parties with extreme ideologies enjoy the

most power in times of extreme trouble. If

the Germans had won WWI, such

extreme trouble would not have arisen.

Adolf Hitler, as the man we know him to

be, would not have existed.

To conclude, the Battle of the Marne, as

explored in this article, was a turning

point in World War I and modern history.

Its effects could have been colossal had

the Germans avoided their mistake, but

instead the Marne simply lead to an

entrenched 4 year stale mate. France would

have been invaded allowing the Germans to

deploy their bulk to the eastern front and

Russia’s economic, social and military

vulnerability would have seen a German

invasion which paints a completely different

Europe to the one we now know.

For more on the Marne and the Great War

try:

‘’The Marne, 1914: The Opening of World War I and the Battle That Changed the World ’ by Holger H. Herwig

(London: Random House Trade Paperbacks)

‘Playing the Game: The British Junior Infantry Officer on the Western Front 1914-18’ by Christopher Moore-Bick

(London: Helion & Co. Limited)

Want to know more?

General Josef

Joffre , known as

‘Papa Joffre’ led the

Allied troops at the

Marne

Reviews & Interviews

Interview Section Dr Till Geiger is an expert on Economic History and has written the book „Britain and the

Economic Problem of the Cold War‟. He came to MGS on the 6th Feb 2013 and gave a talk

titled „The Rise of an American “Empire”‟

Can you explain your passion for history?

‗When I was younger I was really interested in History, but unfortunately in

order to study History at a higher level in Germany, one must also study Latin

and not being a great Latin Scholar, I chose to study economics at university.

The reason I returned to my passion for history was because economists don‘t

explain the world, whereas historians do, therefore I studied Economic History

at LSE for my masters.‘

What period of history fascinates you the most?

‗The immediate post-second world war period and the Cold War fascinate me

because it is life History. I say this because my father was only fourteen at the

end of the war, and living in Western Germany, was greatly influenced by post-

war American foreign policy and the global politics of the time.‘

What would you say was the pivotal moment in the Cold War, and what do you

think may have happened, if events had unfolded differently?

‗For me, the most important point in the Cold War was in 1945. If the Soviet

Union had announced to the world that it had been devastated by war, that its

economy lay in ruin and was in desperate need of financial aid, then the West

would have seen that the Soviet Union was no real threat to Capitalism.

Moreover, the US would probably have viewed Soviet expansionism as

opportunistic and a result of the USSR‘s own insecurity. However, would the

‗West‘ have been prepared or able to offer financial aid to the USSR? I think

the answer is that Western Europe was certainly in no position after the war to

offer financial aid, and the USA would have been unlikely to prop up the Soviet

Union as a communist state. However, that is not to say that the US foreign

policy of containment and subsequent wars in South Eastern Asia [Korea]

would still have existed. Therefore, I can only hypothesise, but I think that the

US foreign policy would have been far less aggressive, if the USSR had let

America see its real political aims and post-war position.‘


When would you say the Cold War began and what would you say was the main

tension between the Communists and the West?

‗The conflict of ideology and culture was really important in the Cold War and

in Europe there were huge doubts over capitalism after the war. In the Soviet

Union the period after the war confirmed for the communists that capitalists

squabbled amongst each other and that the capitalist system was close to

collapse. The Soviet Union was very effective in demonstrating to Europe that

the USSR had saved the continent and its cultures from Nazism. The Soviets

stressed their admiration for European high culture, especially German

classical music and ballet, in order to show the rest of Europe that they had

shared values. It was more an uphill battle for America, which still had the

stereotype held by Europeans (and other Americans themselves) that the

Americans lacked this high culture. But in the late forties the USA managed to

convince Europe of its cultural worth through opera and American art

exhibitions, with Jackson Pollock‘s artwork becoming popular across Europe as

well as many other artists. The rest of the conflict revolves around power and

preserving either the capitalist or communist economic system.‘

‗In between 1945-1947, these battle lines become drawn more clearly and the

start of the Cold War for me is 1948, following the breakdown of communication

when the Liberal and Social Democratic Ministers in Czechoslovakia resign and

the Soviets take over. The Berlin Airlift Crisis seals this division of the major

powers.‘

The Berlin Wall was eventually overcome by the people of Berlin



Review Section Sixth formers review books that they have been reading recently

The Jaguar Smile: A Nicaraguan Journey

Sir Salman Rushdie

Vintage Books, 160pp. £8.99

Though best known for his magical realism and historical fiction

novels, Salman Rushdie‘s The Jaguar Smile shows us that his factual

work is no less worth reading. In it he describes his journey around

Nicaragua in 1986, when the country was in the midst of a period of

political and social instability after the end of the Somoza dictatorship

and the takeover by the left-wing Sandinista Front (FSLN), all against

the sombre backdrop of the waning Cold War.

Through his literary contacts, Rushdie was able to meet with and

interview several members of the FSLN leadership, not least President

Daniel Ortega – whom he likens to a ‗bookworm who had done a body-

building course‘. He reveals a group of patriotic and intelligent men, dedicated to their country‘s cause and more

sensitive to public opinion than most US or British politicians, and by the end of the book is unashamedly

admirative of their sincerity and determination in the face of intense economic and political pressure from the

north. He does, however, present a balanced and fair view of the government – one particular concern to him, as a

writer, was its decision to shut down the daily La Prensa, which had expressed some support for the US-backed

opposition, an action he viewed as a potentially dangerous threat to press freedom.

One of the key themes that runs through this work is the USA‘s ignorance of, or more likely refusal to admit, the

true nature of the Nicaraguan revolution. For example, Ronald Reagan insisted on calling the Sandinistas

‗Stalinists‘ and a ‗dictatorship‘, even though, as Rushdie points out, the 1984 elections, in which the FSLN won a

landslide victory, were rated some of the fairest ever seen in Latin America by foreign observers. Instead, the US

supported the Contras, right-wing guerrilleros who terrorised rural communities and used kidnapped child soldiers

to fight for them. Not for the first time, the United States of America‘s refusal to see the politics of the rest of

América as anything more complex than left vs right resulted in tragedy for innocent Latin Americans.

Rushdie‘s portrayal of the Nicaraguan people is particularly fascinating: throughout his journey he made a great

effort to meet and communicate with the ordinary inhabitants of the country, be they soldiers, midwives, poets or

rural peasants. This root-level investigation into those who make up the majority of Nicaragua‘s population gives

us a perspective on revolution that is, unfortunately, left out all too often in historical literature: the opinions of

ordinary people. Among the numerous revelations about the Nicaraguan people, one in particular stands out: when

asked for their views on the solution to the dire political and economic situation, not one favoured negotiating with

the Contra rebels – in one of his most poignant observations, Rushdie notes that the Sandinistas felt secure enough

to arm the peasants with AK-47s to defend their own villages from the terrorists. What other Central American

régime would have dared to do the same?

If you‘re after a straightforward two-sided history of the Nicaraguan Revolution, this book is not for you. Instead,

full of the linguistic eloquence and lucid insights of a novelist who has lived in both East and West, this book

presents the reader with a thoroughly absorbing portrayal of a nation whose Cold War experience could be a

microcosm not only of Central America, but of the entire Third World.

Sam Heath

Review Section


Juan Carlos – A People’s King

Paul Preston

Harper Collins Publishers, 519pp. £25.00

Paul Preston‘s ―Juan Carlos – A People‘s King‖ is an extensive

insight into the life of Spain‘s King and the fortunes and conditions

surrounding his rise to the throne through the Francoist régime.

He basically tries to answer why he accepted his father‘s decision to

be educated in Spain under Franco away from his family and why,

brought up to accept the ideals of the movimiento and the régime,

did he crusade for the change to democracy after Franco‘s death.

Juan Carlos attempts to tackle his relationship with his

father, his rise to prominence in Franco‘s Spain and the depth of

work done to create a vibrant democracy in place of the absolutist

system of the Caudillo. As a historian who specializes in Hispanic

studies, which he has studied for more than 30 years, he has strong

knowledge and expertise on the matter which is reflected by his

strong use of contemporary evidence and sources to back up his

ideas and points.

As an answer to the two questions, Preston seems to imply

that much of Juan Carlos‘s ―self-sacrifice‖ was down to his

responsibility and sense of duty to his dynasty to reclaim the

Spanish throne for the Borbóns. The evidence, clearly shown, is that despite his constant moving during his early

education and up-bringing away from his parents in Spain by the Caudillo, he essentially remained loyal to his

family, never really adapted to Franco and remained determined to bring democracy which is seen clearly by his

comments to the Chicago Tribune and New York Times on the need for change, his own personal torment at

accepting the throne over his father and the obvious changes that were made after he became king to free the

press and create a constitutional system. This is indeed backed up by much evidence, quoting almost every major

Spanish newspaper and key figure to present a credible account of what happened and why. Nearly every point is

backed up by some quote or statistic, his range of knowledge, facts and degree of detail making it very convincing

and impressive to read.

However, despite this, much of the book is based solely on the history behind the man and thus the man

himself does remain a bit of a mystery. Whether down to his noted ―shyness‖ or Preston‘s focus on Franco and the

situation of the dictatorship instead of Juan Carlos, it is less of a biography than a book on the relationships and

intrigue in the Francoist bureaucracy. In focusing on public life and events, which are nonetheless well researched

and explained, the character of Juan Carlos and what he was like is not so clear cut. Although he had an obvious

sense of duty to Spain and to his family, he is described by Preston indeed as a bit of a playboy, who had many

infatuations, none more than with Princess Maria Gabriella di Savoia and enjoyed hunting, skiing and yachting.

Furthermore, the fact that he accidentally shot his own brother while playing with a loaded gun hardly suggests

the dutiful King implied by Preston. Thus, much of the personal character remains double-sided. He ended a

dictatorship and brought freedom, but was not an outstanding student at school and didn‘t have much popularity

before the democratization after he came to power.

It is indeed very similar to ―Franco‖, another book by Paul Preston, which revealed a lot about the man and

his influence on Spain, if again, lacking in personal details and information on his private life, focusing mainly on

his public role and the bigger picture at the time, although it‘s length and depth of knowledge are, again,

something that must be noted. Thus, although it is true that Juan Carlos was a man burdened by responsibilities,

described as a ―shuttlecock‖ played between two giants, and has been well documented by Preston, nevertheless,

much of the man himself is not revealed. Despite the fact that we learn so much about his public life and problems

in getting to the throne, not so much is revealed about his private life which is the only real problem for an

otherwise excellent history on the man behind the throne. It is a very comprehensive book on what happened and

why, and would be perfect for any historian interested in Spain, Franco or Juan Carlos.

Ryan Emerson



The Imperial War Museum isn‘t exact- it caters for every-

one. Its sheer size and scale will appeal to all couples and

students wandering around for a visit, right down to groups

of families and children losing themselves in search for the

many more eccentricities and wonders of IWMN. It offers all

an incredible insight into the Wars that will clutch on to

them from the moment they enter right until they walk out

of the exit doors.

The thrilling adventure began exactly the moment I walked

through the doors leading to the main exhibition room. I

stepped into a dark yet vast room and already there was no

leaving. The space you‘re given allows you to freely explore

into the depths of World War 1. Surrounding myself were

small glass cupboards positioned neatly around the room

holding immense evidence about the War. I was stunned by

the delivery of information on the war- unlike a lengthy es-

say, you are instead introduced to concise blocks of text

which are easy to read and comprehensible. I also enjoyed

how the structure of the main exhibition room worked as a

somewhat timeline; you would be reading on the causes of

the first world war an then would find the next pulse of light

like some puzzle presenting you with the subsequent stages

of the war. As I would pass every stage of the WW1 I mar-

velled at the beauty of the artefacts and how they carried

great significance making IWMN even more special. When I

approached the artillery stage I was mesmerized by the wea-

ponry that IWMN had preserved and I identified each gun.

There was a British Webley Mark IV revolver and a German

PO8 Luger pistol. Then would follow more extreme weapon-

ry, such as the German Gewer 98 rifle and Maxim machine

gun. Attached to the ceiling would be the eminent aero-

planes displaying aviation in the wars.

Walking on, there were on the walls exhibits of other disas-

ters and wars. I passed one wall and saw the World Trade

Centre after it had been fatally hit by the two planes. There

was also on display a small piece of infrastructure that hap-

pened to be a part of one of the towers. In large bold text I

read more depressing news about casualties and history

repeating itself again as I passed other walls bearing more

distressing information about World War 2 and the Iraq

wars. Perhaps this was to be a disadvantage of IWMN.

IWMN also showed the public the true veterans of the wars:

those who had taken a life to save a life, Politicians working

diligently for their country and Commanders of British

Troops and armies who had fought bravely in the wars. I

adored the dedication and the tribute to the veterans and all

those who had fought. There were sections devoted to and

explaining the roles of Sir Douglas Haig, David Lloyd

George, Woodrow Wilson and of course Edith Cavell. The

exhibition gave more intriguing information about the war

including Naval Arms Races, USA, submarine warfare at

the height of the Zimmermann Telegram and much more.

The museum also talked more about life in the trenches and

home front which gave me a vision about food, hygiene and

hazards. What was also excellent about the museum was

that it didn‘t just offer information and knowledge about the

wars, but showed it. I was passing yet another glass cup-

board when I was enticed by these cylinder cases. They were

known infamously as the mystery smell boxes. One reeked

of a man‘s feet in trench life and there were others which

smelled awful that you had to identify. The timeline carried

on and I began to lose myself. It was then that I saw these

extraordinary filing cabinets which opened to show letters

between families and soldiers. This talked more about life on

the home front. I began to come more to my senses passing

by the Gulf wars, Falkland wars and then to present day

Afghanistan. After a full view of IWMN‘s display of the

wars, I would definitely like to come back and revisit.

It was afterwards, that I entered the ―Saving Lives‖ exhibi-

tion and noticed that the room was much brighter than the

main exhibition hall. This was because the room resembled

a hospital, the floor, the lights etc., as if it were trying to

help feel I was about to step into a world of medicine and

improved treatments for those who had suffered in the war.

I was first introduced to the RAMC (Royal Army Medical

corps) and read more about their practises. It was linked to

the wars as it talked about the diseases one could get from

the trenches and fronts such as trench foot and I saw grue-

some images of victims of that and other diseases. Images

only began to become more appalling with victims hit by

shell fragments and suffering from IED‘s (Improvised explo-

sive devices). After seeing such atrocities, I approach the

second part of the exhibition: Treatments and Cures. This

section also gave information about soldiers who had consid-

ered their friends and fellow soldiers before themselves. One

of these men was Noel Chevasse who saved 20 men while

already injured by a shell. As I walked along I learnt that

soldiers can also suffer from a ―post-traumatic stress disor-

der‖ known as shellshock. It was then that I saw more about

war accelerating change from the discoveries of penicillin to

solve the problem of wound infections and blood transfu-

sions to help those with little blood. There were also the

breakthroughs of using prosthetics for amputated limbs and

plastic surgery for those whose faces had been sadly distort-

ed by shells and burns. It was these breakthroughs that

made the ―Saving Lives‖ exhibition very unique to IWMN.

The Imperial War Museum was truly delightful. It is inspi-

rational and dedicated to its aims: to provide the general

public with information about the wars of the past. It fulfils

this aim in its own unique way making it a must-visit Muse-

um for all ages.

Tayyeb Sheikh

During the Lent term the Year 9 forms went on a trip to the Imperial War Museum North to

discover more about World War One

IWMN Reviews by Year 9

IWMN Review


On the 28th of February, I went to

the Imperial War Museum North

with my form and had a very

enjoyable time. If a family were to

go to the museum, the first thing

they would notice would be the

interesting design of the exterior

and also the interior. The concept

was thought up by an architect

called who Daniel Libeskind and it

is meant to represent the effects of

war. It shows a world shattered by

war and then being refitted by

three interlocking shards which

represent conflict on water, earth

and in the air. When I went with

my form, we first had a handling

session. This is also available to

groups. This involves handling

replicas and real items from World

War One, the Holocaust or World War Two. There is

also an opportunity to listen to local people who

have had their lives affected by war both home and

abroad. We did a World War One session and this

involved getting to handle replica grenades, gas

masks and shell cases. This was particularly

interesting as a member of staff would come over

and give us interesting facts about the objects we

were holding which helped us really understand

what the war was like a bit more. After this, we

went into the main museum to look at the

information on all sorts of different conflicts from

World War One to the present day Afghanistan War.

This was an incredible hall brimming with

information on every little detail of war. It is set out

to make you feel a bit disorientated, as if you were

on the frontline. On every hour there is a short show

on a different topic. When we went we saw one on

the effects war has on children. It was quite moving

and powerful but it made you think about what it

would be like if your lives were affected like that

and how you would feel if you were put into the

same shoes as these children. After the short film,

we moved into the best part of the museum; a

special exhibit about the medical teams on the front

line and the improvement of medicine in wartimes.

Like all the other content in the museum, it was

quite thought-provoking and it really made you stop

and think. This is considerably smaller than the

main hall, but the content in this room is absolutely

fascinating. It shows all the minute changes to the

changes that now save thousands more lives each

year such as blood transfusions and the adaptation

of drugs like penicillin. While in this room, you learn

immense amounts about subjects you probably never

really thought about when considering war. Just one

of forty one special exhibits since the museum‘s

opening ten years ago, there are sure to be plenty

more incredible exhibitions just like this one. And,

if the saving lives exhibit is anything to go by, the

past and future exhibitions should be just as

amazing.

I would recommend this to any family that would

like an educational day out that will leave you

wanting to come back for more. Also, I would

recommend keeping an eye on the special

exhibitions being held there in order to be truly

astounded by some of the small, forgotten details

about conflicts. Overall, it was a great trip and it

would be worth revisiting in the future when the

new exhibition arrives.

Tom Makin

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/IWMN.jpg



Interview Section II Dr Patrick Hagopian is a lecturer at Lancaster University specialising in the Vietnam War. He

came to MGS on the 10th April 2013 to give a talk on Nixon in Vietnam. The Shoardian was

able to question him on Vietnam and history at university

What got you into history?

‗It was a bit of an accident. I was applying for a doctorate at the Johns Hopkins

University in the USA to do Humanities but my application was sent to the history

department. My doctorate was on the Vietnam War, but I was not sure if it counted as

history; it was 1988, only 15 years after the USA withdrew but the professor who

admitted me said that he was a full professor of history at Johns Hopkins University,

and if he said it was history, then it is history!‘

The popular view is that US withdrawals were caused by the peace protests but this has

been discredited by some historians. What is your view?

‗There is a lot of controversy over the influence that the anti-war movement had on US

policy. Some historians do indeed believe that the movement prolonged American

President Nixon sought to find a solution to the Vietnam War that would bring ‘Peace with Honour’, yet he was not

afraid to apply pressure on the communist forces try to bring them to the negotiating table

Interview with Dr Patrick Hagopian


society‘s support for Johnson and Nixon‘s policies. The theory goes like this: The

American public disliked the war in Vietnam but disliked the protesters even more and

so the protesters actually buoyed up support for the war. I think that this view is wrong,

as protesters maintained a visible opposition to the war and continually raised moral

and political objections to it. They provided an effervescence that bubbled through the

polity and encouraged elected officials in Congress to question and oppose the war. So I

think that the protesters did influence the war, in part by staying the President‘s hand

at significant moments and by preventing escalation. Let me give you a clear example:

‗President Nixon wanted to launch a decisive escalation of the war in autumn of 1969.

‗Operation Duck Hook‘, his name for a planned operation outside of South Vietnam, was

cancelled as a result of two anti-war protests in October and November.‘

‗This one clear example shows how the anti-war protests influenced the President. If we

can extrapolate from that, the movement was influential in the sense of influencing

what did not happen, not solely what did happen.‘

Would you say that there were any turning points in the Vietnam War?

‗There was a time before the war when it seemed possible that the USA would recognise

that there were legitimate demands for Vietnamese independence from French

colonialism; Roosevelt seemed inclined to acknowledge that these demands for

Vietnamese independence.‘

‗I would recommend a book that has recently been published [Embers of War: The Fall

of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam], written by Fredrik Logevall on the

first Indochina War, when France tried to re-establish its authority over

Vietnam. Through this, one can see how U.S. decision making was driven by the

imperatives of the Cold War. However, if in 1954, the USA had intervened at the Battle

of Dien Bien Phu between the French and the Vietnamese it would have not made a

decisive difference because the French defeat was inevitable at that stage. One of the

problems was that the Americans had a tense relationship with the French.‘

What advice would you give to students looking to read history at university?

‗Come to Lancaster! It is a parochial point, I know, but I would hope that they would

consider Lancaster as well as other high quality degree schemes. In a broader sense, if

they have had a chance to read a particular historian whom they admire, they might

investigate where he or she teaches and consider applying there. They should also

consider the particular mix of subjects offered in different history departments with a

view to studying the period, nation or region that most interests them. They should take

all this into account. They should be drilling down into the particular strengths of each

department where they are considering studying history; not just the obvious ones, but

where there is a mix of subjects that they love or are open to becoming fascinated with.

They should also keep in mind that they may have not found the right subject for

themselves yet and must be open to other possibilities. And of course, they must try to

visit open days to get a feel for the universities and what student life is like at each one.‘

The War of the Triple Alliance


T he War of the Triple Alliance,

known in Paraguay as La

Guerra Guasú or ‗The Great

War‘, was the largest and

bloodiest war in South American history,

pitting a coalition of Argentina, Uruguay

and the Empire of Brazil, then (much as

it is now) the continent‘s military and

economic superpower, against a small,

landlocked country of barely 500,000

inhabitants. Paraguay itself lost 40% of

its territory to the victors, and half of its

population perished. The story of this

conflict, and its consequences for the

belligerent powers, is little known outside

the continent, even though it had such a

profound influence on the future not only

of Paraguay itself, but also of the whole of

South America.

The war emerged out of a rebellion in

Uruguay by the liberal Colorados against

the democratically- elected, conservative

Blanco government. Tensions between

Brazil and Paraguay grew when the

former intervened on the side of the

Colorados, culminating in the defeat of

the Blancos at Paysandú in December

1864, an action which Paraguay‘s

President Francisco Solano López viewed

as an unconscionable violation of

Uruguay‘s sovereignty and a threat to the

balance of power in the region. The war

officially began in May 1865, when

Brazil, Argentina and the newly liberal

Uruguay signed the Treaty of the Triple

Alliance against Paraguay, leading to

almost six years of ferocious land and

river warfare.

It has traditionally been believed that

Paraguay‘s fate was effectively sealed by

the coalition of those three countries. In

reality, however, the Allied victory was

not so completely certain throughout the

war, and the two sides were not as

unbalanced as it may first seem. In early

1865, the Allies fielded a combined army

of around 70,000 men, 40,000 of whom

were Brazilians, backed up by their

The war of the Triple Alliance Sam Heath investigates the war in South America in the 1860s between Argentina, Uruguay,

Paraguay and Brazil

Left:

Paraguayan

President

Francisco

Solano

López

Right:

President

Bartolomé

Mitre of

Argentina

(Beards

were in

fashion

then)



relatively huge populations, and their

economic, technological and naval

superiority, while the Paraguayans

numbered 60,000, mostly poorly-trained

and equipped with out-dated weaponry,

and with only a small population and

economy to rely on. On the other hand,

Paraguay had several advantages

balancing the odds: their troops were all

free men – (s well as a substantial

number of women)– and possessed of a

zealous fighting spirit praised even by

their enemies, while the vast majority of

the Allied armies consisted of conscript

soldiers and, in the case of Brazil, black

slaves, who had little reason to feel

patriotic – indeed, many of them deserted

to the Paraguayans to gain their freedom;

secondly, Paraguay was aided by the

geography of the region, as the only

practical way into the country was via the

Río Paraná, guarded by the heavily

fortified citadel of Humaitá, and the

Paraguayans managed to use the

numerous swamplands and tributaries to

their advantage, against the Allied troops

who were more used to fighting pitched

battles on open ground. In fact, Paraguay

achieved several victories over the Allies,

including at Curupayty in September

1866, where 5,000 Paraguayans and 49

cannon in fortified trenches successfully

defended themselves against an

Argentine-Brazilian attack: the Allies

suffered 9,000 casualties, the

Paraguayans just 54. Ultimately, López

failed to take advantage of this

overwhelming victory, but it showed that

Paraguay could still fight a defensive

war, and might still win it.

Another path which the conflict might

have taken was negotiation between the

opposing sides: this possibility was

brought tantalizingly close to realization

just days before the battle at Curupayty,

when López sent a letter to the

Argentinian President Bartolomé Mitre,

proposing a conference to discuss the

possibilities of peace negotiations.

Whether this was a genuine gesture of

desire for a political settlement on the

part of the Paraguayan leader or simply a

ruse to gain time to reinforce the

Curupayty garrison was debated among

foreign commentators, and will probably

never be known; it is certain, however,

that the timing of such a peace deal

would have been very propitious for both

sides. The Paraguayans found themselves

in an extremely grave situation, with

their defences at Curupayty still

incomplete, and with López himself

commenting that ‗things could not look

more diabolical than they do‘. T; there

were calls from the west coast republics,

particularly from Peru, for the end of the

war, and there was also the possibility of

intervention by the European powers,

whose trade along the Paraná was being

interrupted. ; Ffinally, there was evidence

that the war was becoming increasingly

unpopular in all three Allied countries –

the feeling was especially intense in the

Argentinian provinces, which were

naturally suspicious of any attempts by

the centralist government of Buenos

Aires to transfer more powers to the

capital, and which now saw the war, and



the demands for money and manpower

that came with it, as part of this creeping

centralisation – Salta even tried to secede

from the republic. One Argentinian

newspaper, La América, openly defended

López and cr i t i c ised Mitre ‘ s

incompetence, while the opinion of ‗No

queremos la guerra con López‘ (We don‘t

want war with López) was being heard

across the country. As it happened, the

two presidents, informed of intense

Brazilian disapproval, met at a place

called Yatayty Corá, and spoke for five

whole hours. Exactly what they discussed

remains unknown, although it appears

that López invited Mitre to end the

bloodshed. I, but in the end, however, no

agreement could be reached, primarily

due to Mitre‘s obstinate insistence upon

López‘s stepping down as president –

some commentators have suggested that

López offered Mitre a compromise,

proposing to retire to Europe to two

years, but this cannot be verified.

Perhaps the underlying problem was the

fact that the futures of the governments

of both Argentina and the Brazil were at

stake and rested upon promises of a

victory over Paraguay, and neither could

afford to risk a possibly humiliating peace

treaty with a comparatively tiny, and

supposedly inferior, republic.

Let us imagine, therefore, that after the

crushing Allied defeat at Curupayty on

the 22nd of September 1866, López had

followed up his tide of good fortune with a

offensive campaign, rather than the

Paraguayan

Refugees

The Battle of

Tuyuti, 24th

May 1866



defensive strategy he actually adopted.

Their armoury restocked with 3,000

Enfield rifle-muskets captured in the

battle, and their troops in an almost

festive mood, the Paraguayans could

easily have overrun the Allied position at

Curuzú – now guarded by only 8,000

despondent Brazilians – and driven the

rest of their forces back across the

Paraná. As the news of the battle reached

home, there were demonstrations in both

Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro calling

for the end of the war, and Mitre was

obliged to send 4,000 troops to quell an

insurrection in the Andean provinces. If,

in our imaginary situation, the

Paraguayans‘ wave of success had

continued, it is not inconceivable that

some of the Argentinian provinces on the

east bank of the Paraná – to wit, Entre

Ríos, Corrientes and Misiones,

collectively known as Argentinian

Mesopotamia – would have seceded from

Argentina and declared their allegiance

to López instead, as the natural

provincial resentment to porteño

dominance was intensified here by a

number of connections to Paraguay: they

shared a history of Jesuit missions and

gaucho culture, and; the trade in tobacco

and yerba mate (a plant used for making

a sort of tea) from Paraguay was vital to

these provinces‘ economies due to

geographical proximity; and, perhaps.

Perhaps most importantly, a large

proportion of their inhabitants spoke

Guaraní natively, as in Paraguay. In fact,

a number of disparate rebel movements

did arise in 1867, calling for the

restoration of true federalism in

Argentina and an end to the Triple

Alliance, proclaiming that the Brazilians

were the real enemy. Admittedly, López

would never have been able to win the

war outright: the distance to the

Argentinian capital was too great, and,

with 20,000 troops remaining, he simply

did not possess the manpower or

resources to force the Argentinians into a

surrender. Nevertheless, it could be

argued that in the event of a Paraguayan

victory at Curupayty and advance down

the Paraná, and with revolts in the

Mesopotamian and Andean provinces,

Mitre would probably have been forced to

try to reach some sort of agreement with

the Paraguayans by mid 1867, in order to

avoid a full-scale popular revolt in

Buenos Aires or a military takeover.

Any negotiations at this stage would most

likely be based on the (albeit rather

vague) conditions proposed by López at

Yatayty Corá a year earlier. By now,

Mitre would no longer be able to insist on

López‘s retirement as president of

Paraguay, as he had done then, nor could

he be so obstinately obedient to the rules

of the Treaty of the Triple Alliance; the

Paraguayans would now have the upper

hand in the negotiations. While it is of

course impossible difficult to speculate

abouton the contents of any such

agreement, we can at least suggest a

number of terms that could have sufficed

to end the war between Argentina and

Paraguay: as regards territorial

boundaries, Mitre would have

relinquished control of the provinces of

Corrientes and Misiones, which, though

under the nominal control of Argentina,

had never been officially assigned to

Brazilian

uniforms

during the

war


Spring 2013│ The Shoardian

either country – Misiones had effectively

ruled itself until 1830. This territorial

change would have been much more

significant in political and economic

terms than the 45,000 square miles it

contained: not only would it have given

Paraguay access to the Río Uruguay,

another route to the country for trading

steamers from the Atlantic, but it would

also have enhanced Paraguay‘s, and

thus López‘s, domestic and international

prestige, especially as it represented the

unification of all Guaraní-speaking

regions under Paraguayan rule. Mitre

would also have had to concede

Paraguay‘s control over Formosa, a

province in the Chaco which had

historically been contested by the two

nations, bringing Paraguay‘s south-

western border down to the Río Ypitá. In

economic terms, López would almost

certainly have demanded free trade

along the entire lengths of the Paraná

and Uruguay rivers, and an end to

blockades by the Argentinian navy, to

allow Paraguayan exports, principally

tobacco and yerba mate, to reach the

global market. Finally, the end of

Argentina‘s cooperation with Brazil

through the Treaty of the Triple Alliance

would of course be insisted upon. Thus,

Argentinian involvement in the war

would have ended, presumably joined by

Uruguay, which had never been in any

state to participate anyway.

There still remains the question of Brazil,

which unl ike Argent ina, was

geographically remote from the main

conflict areas and therefore less

susceptible to Paraguayan assaults. While

there was no eagerness for the war among

either the working classes or the conscript

soldiers, the Brazilian upper classes

remained reluctantly supportive of

continuing the conflict – furthermore, the

reputation of the monarchy was at stake,

and the Emperor, Dom Pedro II, saw it as

his moral duty to see the end of López‘s

rule. Even so, the Paraguayans did

manage to make some inroads into

Brazil‘s western provinces of Mato Grosso

and Rio Grande do Sul, and eventually even

the Imperial élite must have realised the

futility of continuing an increasingly pointless

land war without the support of their two

former allies to the south.

Being such a crucial turning point in South

American history, the consequences of any

premature peace settlement in 1867/8 cannot

be underestimated. To appreciate this, we

must understand the actual effects that the

protracted six-year war had on Paraguay

itself. The most obvious effect was the vast

death toll: war casualties alone were as high

as 220,000, not including the many thousands

who died from disease and starvation

provoked by the conflict – some have argued

that the massacres committed by the Allied

armies amounted to genocide, exemplified by

the order given to Brazilian officers to

eliminate the Paraguayans ‗até o feto no

ventre da mãe‘ (up to the fetus in the

mother‘s womb). This scale of decimation

would be deleterious to any country, but to

a country as small as Paraguay, with a

pre-war population of only 500,000, its

result was catastrophic. Economically, the

countryside was in ruin, the labour force

severely depleted, and the strong

modernisation that had been taking place

for the last four decades halted in its

tracks. Under its two previous presidents,

Brazilian

artillery

http://www.museumsyndicate.com/images/6/53757.jpg


37 Spring 2013│ The Shoard-

Want to know more?

For more on South American history,

try:

‗Tragedy of Paraguay’ by Gilbert Phelps

(London: Cox & Wyman)

‗A Brief History of Argentina’ by Jona-

than C. Brown

(New York: Checkmark Books)

José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia and

Carlos Antonio López, Paraguay‘s level of

development had been the envy of the

continent: agriculture became self-

sufficient, with the land of aristocrats and

clerics nationalised and divided among the

peasants, and in the 1840s, with increased

foreign (primarily British) investment, the

first highways and telegraph systems had

been built, as well as one of the first

railroads in South America, from

Asunción to Paraguarí. By 1870, Paraguay

was the most backward nation in the

region, and it was only in the early 1900s

that economic development reached pre-

war levels. Paraguay also had one of the

most stable political regimes in the post-

independence Americas, with only three

rulers between 1814 and 1870 –

neighbouring democratic Argentina, on

the other hand, saw more than 20 heads of

state in the same period – and, compared

to most other Latin American countries,

social inequality was extremely low, as

symbolized by the equal status of the

indigenous language Guaraní with

Spanish, even among white and mestizo

inhabitants. The war set back these

extraordinary social and political

advances by decades, so much so that it

was not until 1993 that Paraguay saw its

first democratically elected president.

Francisco Solano López himself was

himself killed by Imperial soldiers in

March 1870 at Cerro Corá, the last battle

of the war, famous pronouncing the words

‗Muero con mi patria‘ (I die with my

country) as he died – he remains to this

day a hero of the Paraguayan people

against foreign oppression. In the

aftermath of the war, Brazil and

Argentina forced Paraguay to cede 169,

174 km² of land – almost 40% of its

territory – most of which consisted of the

most fertile tobacco and yerba mate

farmland, and it is likely that, if it had not

been for its usefulness as a buffer state

between the two giants, Paraguay would

have been divided up completely.

In the event that the war had never

arisen, or that a peace treaty had been

signed in 1867 or 186/8, the international

situation in the Southern Cone would

have been radically different for the rest of

the 19th century and even beyond.

Paraguay would almost certainly have

remained the most economically developed

society in the region, with an economy

based primarily on agriculture but also

increasingly industrialized, aided by

rising foreign investment, to an extent

way to a significantly greater extent than

above those of Argentina, Brazil or

Uruguay. The level of social equality

would have far outshone its neighbours,

and probably most American countries

today, and democracy would have

emerged, if not under López then under

one of his successors, as a result of the

populist policies pursued by the

government and the gradual development

of a mercantile middle class. The War of

the Triple Alliance really was a tragedy,

the unjust triumph of superpowers over a

defiant independent nation, that robbed

the Paraguayan people of everything they

had constructed over half a century, and

which caused a huge gulf between what

was and what could have been.

The Nauruan Tragedy

T he tragic history of Nauru, the world‘s

smallest republic with an area of 8 mi² and

10,000 inhabitants, serves as a warning to

us all about the dangers of economic

mismanagement and over-exploitation of natural

resources.

.

In 1906, the British Pacific Phosphate Company

began to mine phosphate, a white powdery rock

used in fertilizer, in central Nauru. It was only

upon independence in 1968, however, under the

leadership of the first president Hammer

deRoburt, that the country began to reap the

rewards of its own mineral wealth.

Revenues from the phosphate brought the

government around A$100 million annually from

1970 to the early 1990s, with this remarkably

rapid wealth acquisition earning Nauru the

nickname of ‗Kuwait of the Pacific‘. In fact, during

the 1970s, Nauruans enjoyed the second highest

GDP per capita in the world (after the UAE), and

the entire nation embarked on an veritable

spending spree. Politicians hired private jets to go

on shopping expeditions in Melbourne, Singapore

and Hawai‘i, while one police chief imported a

Lamborghini, even though the island had only one

paved road with a speed limit of 30 mph – all of

this with public money. A prime example of the

unnecessary expense was the flag-carrier Air

Nauru, which started operating in 1972: the

airline operated (often empty) flights to as far

away as Manila and Auckland, and at its peak had

a capacity equivalent to 10% of the population.

The clichéd ‗Pacific paradise‘ did not seem so far

away after all.

Yet the glory days were doomed to end. By the early

1990s, the phosphate reserves were runnning out,

and new sources of revenue had to be found. Nauru

began buying properties around the Pacific, notably

Nauru House in Melbourne, its ‗jewel in the crown‘,

and the Grand Pacific Hotel in Suva. Unfortunately,

however, a succession of finance ministers, lacking

any financial experience whatsoever, proved

incapable of developping supposedly sound

investments. The funds of the Nauru Phosphate

Royalties Trust, badly neglected since its foundation

in 1970, were drying up, and the government was

running on a deficit of A$50 million per year. In an

event symbolic of Nauru‘s downfall, Nauru House

had to be sold off in 2004 when retaining it became

unviable. Politically, too, the situation was

deteriorating: protests by ordinary Nauruans broke

out at Yaren airport in 1993 against the hosting of

the South Pacific Forum, and the country saw 8

different unstable administrations come and go in

the 1990s alone.

By the turn of the century, the government was

bankrupt, relying on AusAID donations to kept the

economy afloat, and corrupt management by

politicians such as President René Harris continued

to deplete the country‘s funds, while public

employees, who make up 95% of the workforce, had

grown used to earning money for doing next to

nothing. Now, four-fifths of the island has been

stripped of nutrients for the mining industry and is

a moonscape of jagged limestone pinnacles, totally

unusable for farming. The population, once among

the world‘s wealthiest, is now among its poorest and

unhealthiest: around 80% of the population is obese,

and 1 in 3 Nauruans is affected by diabetes. Most

unjust of all, it has been estimated that if the

phosphate revenues had been invested effectively,

every Nauruan family today would have around A$4

million. Those most responsible for the tragedy, the

incompetent, corrupt politicians and esurient

Australian financial advisors, have still not received

punishment after one of history‘s most

unconscionable exploitations of an island and its

people – whether the injustices caused by the errors

of the past can be rectified remains to be seen.

Sam Heath writes about the sad fate of the small island of Nauru

The Nauruan Tragedy

What if Malcom X hadn’t Been Assassinated?

What if Malcom X Hadn’t Been Assassinated? Richard Birch examines the icon of the Black Power movement and asks what would have

happened if Malcom had not been shot by a Nation of Islam Gunman

I n the early 1960s, America was in a state

of social upheaval. The civil rights

movement had shaken Conservative

white America to its core, with its

promotion of nonviolent resistance in order to

achieve equal rights for blacks. However, a far

more controversial campaign was to take hold of

America, led by a young minister of the Nation Of

Islam called Malcolm X. As the civil rights

movement took hold, this young, physically

domineering and powerful orator emerged and

gained support. He did not promote the

integration of blacks and whites in an equal

society: he promoted the punishment of whites,

the use of black violence, black pride (including

plans to return to Africa) and black superiority.

The white supporters the civil rights movement

had gained were put off by the violence and threat

of the Black Power movement. But what if

Malcolm X had survived the attempt on his life by

a NOI gunman?

The Black Power movement retained its iconic

leader and gained momentum and influence.

Malcolm X rose to prominence and retaliatory

violence from blacks increased. The use of fire

hoses and police attack dogs against black

protesters were met by acts of terrorism against

white figures of authority and random acts of

racially motivated violence also increased; as the

violent and the desperate leapt on the chaos as an

opportunity to attack and rob.

As Martin Luther King struggled to win over

Lyndon B. Johnson with peaceful methods, many

blacks grew enraged by the lack of action. ―Mr

Kennedy… there will be no cooling-off period for

us.‖ spoke John Lewis as early as 1963. Many

blacks identified with the self-righteous anger of

the charismatic Malcolm X, yet many at the

Nation of Islam were angry with his inability to

follow their strict religious teachings. Threats on

his life increased and he retaliated with a series

of speeches condemning his former comrade,

Elijah Muhammad.

Put off greatly by the violence spreading

nationwide, Lyndon Johnson refused to support

the civil rights bill; sending all of King‘s work to

waste. The black cause was set back, yet anarchy

spread nationwide as X‘s teachings grew more

extreme; calling for total disrespect of white

authority. The divide between Black Power and the

Civil Rights movement increased as King spoke of his

increasing disdain for X‘s violent tactics and X

derided King as a stooge of the white authorities.

As black infighting grew, and the blacks all the while

were attacked by white racist fringe groups such as

the increasingly popular Ku Klux Klan, foreign

governments spoke of the need to put an end to ―the

race issue‖ once and for all.

While Lyndon Johnson sought out a deal with King s

a way to end the violence, Malcolm X made a

pilgrimage to Mecca before visiting Nigeria (where he

had been well received several years previously).

However, as the civil rights bill was in the process of

being passed (a year later than in reality) Malcolm X

was attacked by Islamic extremists in Nigeria,

resulting in his death on July 19th 1966.

If Malcolm X hadn‘t been assassinated in 1965, it

would not have taken long for another one of his

many enemies to have killed him. He was a

charismatic figure, yet was sure to bring only

anarchy to America, using his considerable talents as

a leader and orator to set the civil rights movement

back years whilst encouraging nationwide violence.

The violence would only have increased with his

survival; and would have subsided with his eventual

death.

What if Richard III had won at Bosworth Field?


T he Battle of Bosworth

Field on the 22nd August

1485 commonly signified

the end of Medieval

England the start of the Tudor

dynasty. The reign of Henry VII, his

son and his grandchildren are some of

the most heavily studied periods in

English history (as Year 8s and Year

12s can attest to) because of the

amount of change and upheaval that

occurred in England, from the Break

with Rome to the Dissolution of the

Monasteries to the Armada and the

founding of Virginia by Sir Walter

Raleigh. But none of this would have

occurred if the outcome at Bosworth

had been different. This article will

try to answer the question of what

would have happened if Richard III

had won and what effects this would

have had on England and the rest of

the world. Please note though that

one can never answer such

hypothetical questions with certainty;

history, by its nature, is caused by a

series of inter-linked and often

accidental events that lead to today

and so such a question one could

never provide a completely sufficient

answer as some events would have

occurred in ways impossible to

What if Richard III had won at Bosworth

Field?

The most illustrious, intelligent and dashingly handsome editor Harrison Edmonds examines

the final Battle of the War of the Roses and answers what would have happened if the Last

Plantagenet had won at Bosworth



predict. Thus this essay is only

hypothetical and hopefully by reading

i t you will gain a greater

understanding of why this battle was

so important.

Richard III went to Bosworth

expecting victory; he was a fierce

warrior who often got himself in the

thick of the fighting, having retook

the crown from the Lancastrians in

1471. Indeed his army of 10,000

outnumbered Henry Tudor‘s 4,000

and the main cause of his defeat was

because he was attacked by the

treacherous Northumberland who had

pledged support to the king but

remained aloof of the battle before

charging into the Yorkist forces and

the King‘s bodyguard when Richard

led a charge against Henry. But if

Northumberland had not committed

his 5,000 men to the battle or joined

with the King Richard would have

won and history would have been very

different. If Henry had not been killed

in the fighting, he would have

probably been captured and hung,

drawn and quartered as a traitor.

Henry‘s claim to the throne had been

weak at best, his mother, Margaret

Beaufort, was descendant from John

of Gaunt, who was the third son of

Edward III, the man who had started

the Hundred Years War. She was

born out of wedlock, and although she

was legitimised when Gaunt married

her mother (who was his mistress) she

was barred from the succession.

Henry represented the last chance of

the Lancastrians for final victory and

if he had failed then there would have

been no more claimants to

legitimately challenge Richard for the

throne. That is not to say that

Richard and the Plantagenet House‘s

reign would have been guaranteed to

continue: both his wife and only

legitimate son died before Bosworth.

Richard had been negotiating with the

King of Portugal to marry his sister

Joanna and had made one of his

nephews John de la Pole, Earl of

Lincoln, as his successor. Whether

Pole succeeded or Joana had a child is

irrelevant for this essay. The main

issue is that the Tudor dynasty would

have never occurred. That means no

Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI,

Mary or Elizabeth I.

This lack of Tudors in English history

is important, as the Great Matter and

Henry VIII‘s divorce would have never

occurred. This means that there

would have been no Break with Rome

and England would have remained a

Roman Catholic country. Lutherans

would have still existed in England,

no doubt, yet they would have held

little sway over the king as he would

have no need to split with the Pope.

This means that it is less likely that

Richard III,

the Last

Plantagenet



Protestantism would have taken hold

in England. That is the important

point.

A Catholic England in the 16th

Century would have seen no conflict

with Spain and no Armada- which

had boats filled with priests- to take

England and reinstate Catholicism.

More importantly, this means that

there would have been no drive for the

English to raid Spanish shipping and

colonise America. America would look

very different today, as a smaller

English presence could have seen

more of Spanish, French and Scottish

colonists and influences. England‘s

enemies would have been the

Protestant Low Countries, whose

maritime empire reached the East

Indies. When Dutch ships came back

to Europe laden with calicoes and

nutmeg there was frenzy in England

to cash in on the trade and in 1600

the English East India Trading

Company was formed. A Catholic

England would have had a greater

incentive to fight of the Dutch and

gain trading posts and goods in the

East Indies than a Protestant one.

Therefore England could have

focussed more of her resources on

successfully colonising the East Indies

and India and spreading her influence

earlier on, such as in the 1600s, than

on American expansion. This multi-

cultural America would not be mostly

united under Britain, as it was before

the War of Independence, but instead

ruled by other European states. When

independence came, therefore,

whether through peaceful or violent

means, North America would be made

up of multiple nation states with their

own distinctive cultures. If these

states did become united, the result

would most likely have been a looser,

more autonomous confederation and

not a closer federation of states. North

America may not have had English as

its primary language and not develop

any sort of

The most important effect on England

would have been no union with

Scotland in 1707. The Stuarts would

America would

look very

different in

some ways, but

not in others

Henry Tudor

had a weak

claim to the

English throne



most likely never have come to the

throne of England and the Scottish

would not have lost £400,000 (half its

capital) trying to set up a trading post

in Panama in 1700, where the

colonists succumbed to exotic

diseases, instead aiming to colonise

the northern part of the New World,

where there would have been a

reduced English presence. The British

Empire would not exist and the

English-only equivalent would have

been far weaker, meaning that

English values, traditions, customs,

language and literature may not have

spread across the globe in quite the

same way. Shakespeare would have

probably written a play about the

hunch-backed traitor Henry Tudor,

but may not have been world famous.

So, in conclusion, if Richard III had

won at Bosworth it would have led to

a Catholic England. Without a drive

to combat Spain she would have had a

lesser presence in the New World.

Scotland would have been stable

enough to remain independent as it

could send expedition into North

America. Without an empire, English

as a language would not spread and

flourish across the globe and England

would be weaker, politically,

economically and culturally. North

America would be made up of multiple

nation states speaking different

languages and without any affinity

towards England. Of course, one must

admit that this is all mere speculation

and theoretical, but by thinking

through such a scenario one can

realise how important points in

history were, and that it should not be

taken for granted that events, such as

the Battle of Bosworth, played out as

they did.

Want to know more?

Should you wish to expand your knowledge of the

Last Plantagenet, you might like to try:

‘Richard III: The Great Debate’ by Paul Murray

Kendal

(London: WW Norton & Co.)

‘Richard III the Young King to be’ by Josephine

Wilkinson

(London: Amberley Publishing)

The Scottish

would not

currently be

‘oppressed’

by the Eng-

lish

There would

have been no

Reformation

What if Chiang had won instead of Mao?


The French Revolution:

the Birth of Bonaparte?

What would China be like

now if Chiang– Kai Shek had

remained in power? Greg Alexander examines the nationalist leader of China in World War 2 and the Chinese

Civil War and asks what would have happened to China and the surrounding countries if

Chiang had seen off Mao Zedong and the communists and had won the war



economic and social reforms. The

Great Leap Forward (1958-1961) was

Mao‘s attempt to put China‘s economy

on a level playing field with America

and the West, yet it saw the deaths of

up to 45 million people from famine,

whilst the Cultural Revolution which

followed in the years to come left the

country in a worse state than before,

with uprisings everywhere against

established ways of thinking and

behaving.

On the other hand, China may not

have been that much different than it

is now economically. Ruling on

Taiwan, Chiang began a massive

industrialization programme on

modernizing principles long before the

Communists did so in mainland

China. Presumably, he would have

pursued the same policy if he was still

ruling the entire country. China

would certainly have modernized

sooner , but because o f the

inefficiencies in Chiang‘s rule – for

example, the corruption of the

government – it is hard to determine

whether or not they would be ahead of

where the People‘s Republic of China

is now.

The aim of the Northern Expedition in

the late 1920s was to unify China

under the Kuomintang (Chiang‘s

government) by ending the rule of

local warlords, which eventually led to

Chinese reunification in 1928. Chiang

was able to defeat a handful of

warlords, who often held a substantial

amount of power in small provinces,

but the majority were bribed. If

Chiang had stayed in power, then it is

likely that at some stage they would

rebel, or keep demanding more and

more money. Chiang‘s regime was

O n, October 1st, 1949, Mao

Zedong declared the

People‘s Republic of China

an official state with its

capital at Beijing. Chiang Kai-shek

and two million Nationalist Chinese

retreated from mainland China to the

small island of Formosa (later called

Taiwan), thereby declaring Taipei the

temporary capital of the Republic of

China, as he continued to assert his

government as the sole legitimate

authority in China. What was to

follow for the Chinese people was

Mao‘s strict regime; with famine,

death and (of course) lots of failed

economic policies. But would China

have been any better off if Chiang had

thwarted the Communist rebellion

beforehand?

If Chiang had won the civil war, then

we can assume that he had been able

to suppress the Communists, allowing

him to consolidate his rule over the

entire country. This would have had

serious consequences for the history of

the Far East. Korea would have been

united as an economic powerhouse;

during the Korean War, there were

fears which came to fruition from the

USA that Communist China would

intervene to defend their territory.

However, Chiang still had a form of

alliance with the USA, so this

situation would never have arisen.

Also, it is almost certain that Vietnam

would not be Communist either, since

Mao‘s government would not have

been there to influence it.

It could be argued that China would

be ahead of what it is today, in terms

of a human development point of

view. The Communists set China back

in the 1950s to the 1970s with their



massively corrupt in this way, so

China could have struggled to

establish a strong centralized state

and even eventually been run by the

warlords.

Chiang also had to constantly deal

with the Communists. If he were not

able to subdue them, then he would

have had to put up with their

guerrilla tactics. If he could have

found a way around this, then it is

likely that China would not have been

aligned with either the USA or the

USSR, and could have potentially

been a third ‗superpower‘. If this was

the case, and because Chiang wasn‘t

Communist, there would not have

been as much tension with the West

as under Mao. It could also have been

the case that China would have been

a third party in the conflict – in which

case, who knows how that would have

affected the rest of the world?

Following on from this ‗superpower‘

theory, China today might have been

g e o g r a p h i c a l l y l a r g e r . T h e

Kuomintang, being a nationalist

movement, saw the rightful borders of

China as being those of the Qing

Dynasty, which encompassed territory

currently part of Russia, Mongolia,

India, Burma, Afghanistan, India and

perhaps most importantly, Japan. If

Chiang had taken the land that he

believed rightfully belonged to China,

Japan may have suffered greatly,

especially economically, in the second

half of the 20th century. With a larger

nation, and a capitalist economy from

the onset, China would have been the

greatest economy in the Far East far

sooner and may have been able to

challenge on the world stage sooner.

Talking of a greater amount of land, it

is also likely that there would be a

greater population than what there

currently is. Policies such as the ‗One

Child Policy‘ introduced by Deng

Xiaoping a fter the Cultural

Revolution would not have been put in

place. This would have had incredible

consequences for China‘s government,

and it is difficult to know how they

would have coped.

Another important point to note is

that ‗Generalissimo‘ Chiang Kai-shek

had established Nanjing as the capital

of the Republic of China which

became internationally recognized

once Kuomintang forces took Beijing

Chiang Kai-

Shek was

leader of the

Kuomintang

nationalists

The

Kuomintang

Flag



in 1928. Beijing was renamed the

capital in 1949 after the Communist

takeover, but if Chiang had remained

in power then it is possible that

Nanjing would still be the capital. Did

anyone get tickets to the 2008

Nanjing Olympics, by the way?!

It‘s an absolute certainty that a

Chiang-ruled China would have

probably gone from crisis to crisis,

with Chiang using the Army and

Western backing to put down any

major revolts – which could be just as

damaging as Mao‘s Great Leap

Forward and Cultural Revolution.

One thing is for certain, though -

Chiang‘s death in 1975, much like

Mao‘s in 1976, would have been the

best thing to happen to China in a

long time, allowing his successors to

remove out-of-date policies and make

necessary reforms. To summarize,

Modern China would probably still be

a somewhat authoritarian state,

roughly as strong – if not stronger –

economically and militarily as it is

today, friendlier with the West but

still pursuing its own interests within

the confines of its sphere of interest.

Want to know more?

If Chiang and the Kuomintang are your sort

of thing, why not try:

‘Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the

China He Lost’ by Johnathan Fenby

(New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers)

The

Kuomintang’s

army would

have been

used to

supress the

Chinese

Chairman

Mao would

have never

have come to

power

The Causes of the Indian Rising


T he causes of the 1857

uprising in British ruled

India are attributed in

popular history to

Mangal Pandey‘s rousing call to his

fellow soldiers (see The Shoardian

Winter Edition 2012 Issue V), this

is somewhat like suggesting that

the cause of the French Revolution

was Marie Antoinette wondering

why the people did not eat cake if

they had no bread. The logic is

questionable and the facts

disputable.

By 1857 Europeans had been

trading and then ruling in Indian

states for more than 250 years and

this increase in direct rule was the

overarching cause of the uprising.

In that time a series of

developments had led to the

gradual increase in power of the

British over other European

trading companies and over

Indians in a range of states. Some

of this increase in power had been

resisted by Indians but much of it

had been the result of greed and

naivety on the part of local rulers

and maharajas who had at first

invited the British East India

Company to assist them fighting

against their neighbours and then

found themselves in debt to the

‗Honourable Company‘ for these

services. In agreements with the

Indian rulers, the British traders

took on the tax collection

The Causes of the Indian Uprising

Mrs Carter responds to an article in Issue V of the Shoardian concerning the 1st War

of Indian Independence, also known as the 1857 Sepoy Mutiny



franchises and imposed political

officers on the maharajas to ‗help

them rule‘ their states. The most

signi f i cant and disrupt ive

extension of British rule occurred

as a consequence of the ‗doctrine of

lapse‘ pursued by Governor-

General Dalhousie (1848-1856); in

order to consolidate British control,

Dalhousie took under direct East

India Company rule seven states in

seven years throughout Northern

India in circumstances where the

direct line of inheritance had

lapsed and only a female, adopted

or minority heir was available.

These included the states of Jhansi

and Satara and Nagpur all of

which were involved in the

uprising. However the most

important state absorbed by the

British was Awadh, the richest

state of all, on the grounds of

misgovernment. The Indian

reaction to this take over was

directly linked to the uprising of

1857 because of the long

established link between Awadh

and the Bengal Army (the British

army in Northern India).

The deterioration of the conditions

and terms of service of the British

army in India, which far

outweighed the cultural ly

insensitive and overplayed issue of

rifle cartridges, was the most

significant cause of the uprising. A

key element of British rule in India

was an efficient and respected

army funded and organised by the

East India Trading Company,

originally used to secure trading

privileges and later used to ‗assist‘

Indian rulers in ruling their states

and fighting their enemies. So, this

army which became known as the

British Army in India, was also the

instrument by which the British

increased their dominion in India

and was the same army which

‗mutinied ‗ in 1857. It was, of

course, officered by young British

gentlemen and made up of local

troops called sepoys. The army

was divided into sections and it

was the Bengal Army sited in the

North of India that rebelled in

1857 when the Madras Army

remained loyal to the British.

Between 65-80% of the Bengal

army were high class sepoys

including many from Awadh who

had many reasons to rebel against

the British even before their home

state was taken over by the

Company; changes to uniform

which made it uncomfortable,

changes to customs surrounding

where sepoys were expected to

serve, new insistence that soldiers

had to be prepared to serve across

the ‗black water‘ which was

problematic for orthodox Hindus,

the introduction of a new ‗Lee

Enfield‘ rifle which was much

harder to load and use than the

Brown Bess musket and the 1856

General Service Enlistment Act.

The status ensuing from being a

sepoy in the British army was

considerable, it reflected well on

the sepoy‘s family and bestowed

prestige as well as wealth. In

addition it also allowed the sepoy‘s

family legal protection as direct

employees of the British they could



access special pleading for family

cases and problems in the courts of

their local states or rulers. When

states like Awadh were taken over

by the British the sepoys could no

longer claim those privileges, this

eroded the status of the high class

sepoys who had been the

traditional recruits for the Bengal

army. The position of these sepoys

had been further diluted by the

new policy of recruiting Sikhs and

Ghurkhas over the previous

decade. Long serving sepoys

therefore saw and resented a

considerable decrease in their

status, legal protection and pay in

real terms as well as prospects for

promotion or employment for their

sons and grandsons. This

significant dislocation between

what the Indian sepoys expected

from their employment and the

views of British officers in the

Bengal army was the context of the

rumours surrounding r i f le

cartridges which formed a part of

the causes of the uprising in 1857.

The role of Mangal Pandey is

apocryphal in this uprising, the

details vague and less exciting. An

eponymous film made in 2005 is

worth watching, if only for the

Bollywood dancing scenes. The

difficult to load Lee Enfield rifle

had been introduced in 1856; it

was a better weapon which was

more accurate at longer distances,

but the loading drill involved biting

of the end of the paper cartridge

which was wrapped around the pre

-greased bullet and contained the

powder charge. The cartridges

were made in Dumdum arsenal in

Calcutta (yes, source of the name

for the dumdum bullet), teething

problems with the production of

this new cartridge meant that too

much grease was used making

them unpleasant for the soldiers to

bite and causing fouling of the rifle

barrel which then had to be

scoured out with sand and hot

water. It seems that the rumours

about the grease being a mixture of

both cow and pig fat ‗were well

founded‘ according to a letter from

Lord Canning and of course this

mixture was abhorrent to both

high caste vegetarian Hindu

sepoys and to their Muslim

colleagues who made up about 15%

of the Bengal army. The

ingredients for the grease were



quickly changed and in addition

many regiments allowed the sepoys

to mix their own lubricant from

ghee and beeswax, but the damage

had been done to the reputation of

the army high command. It was

quickly, but erroneously, believed

by sepoys that it was a deliberate

policy to defile and Christianise the

sepoys who were already sensitive

to erosion of their status and

resentful of the social and religious

dislocation already mentioned.

Simmering resentment that had

been growing over a number of

years led to protests in individual

regiments, sepoys refused to use

the rifle or even touch it. In March

1857 at Barrakpore in Bengal a

sepoy called Mangal Pandey shot

and wounded two officers and

encouraged his fellow soldiers to

rise up, he was tried and hanged.

Junior officers called for the rifles

to be withdrawn but the

Commander in Chief, General

George Anson refused this request.

Then followed arson attacks in the

cantons (living quarters) of the

sepoys and the victimisation of

sepoys who had bitten the

cartridges by their fellows who

called them Christians. In may

open revolt broke out in Meerut

where the 3rd Light Infantry

refused to fire the rifles and 85

sepoys were convicted of mutiny

and sentenced to 10 years penal

servitude. The day following the

trial the rest of the regiment rose

up in rebellion and massacred the

Christian inhabitants of Meerut.

Thus the rumours about

cartridges, which had in fact been

replaced as soon as the problem

was known, fed years of

resentment, loss of status and

social dislocation between the

Indians and their British rulers

resulting in the most serious

uprising against colonial rule in

India before the development of

modern Indian nationalism.

The significance of the uprising is

both in the changes it brought to

the government of India in the

short term with the abolition of the

East India Company and the

imposition of full direct rule from

London and also in the emergence

of a proto-nationalism that would

see its culmination with the

division of the continent into

Pakistan and India in 1947. While

it is often tempting to give

colourful characters like Mangal

Pandey a key role in events like

this in popular history, a deeper

understanding of the background

reveals that the root causes were

both more shocking in their long

term ignorance of the needs of

British Indian subjects and more

interesting in the foreshadowing of

the key features of Indian

nationalism.

Want to know more?

For more on Indian history, try:

The Discovery of India‘ by Jawaharlal Nehru

(London: Penguin)

‗Bhagat Singh: An Immortal Revolutionary

of India‘ by Bhawan Singh Rana

(London: Diamond Pocket Books)

Hern’s Historical Helpline: History and Volcanoes


E nvironmental explanations of

historical change have

become very popular over the

last few decades. As historical

sciences have become more sophisticated,

Hern’s Historical Helpline: how volcanoes

have made History

it has been possible to research ancient

ecosystems with increasing precision.

Archaeology, in particular, not only

allows one to trace the material

framework of historical societies, but has

allowed us to reconstruct their climate,

Dear Mr Hern,

Some bearded fanatic keeps breaking into my classroom to lecture me that human history has

been shaped by environmental factors and that the trajectory of past events were shaped by a

series of major volcanic explosions. What can you tell me about this approach to the past? And

do you know of a good locksmith? A Taser might be useful too.

Yours sincerely,

Mr Harrison



sea levels, precipitation rates and

vegetation levels. Alongside the technical

details, such an approach has been

influenced by the development of

environmentalist ideas since the 1970s,

which can view the activities of homo

sapiens as a major threat to the Earth‘s

viability. The relationship between

humans and their environment is now

thought to be more ambiguous than the

views held a century ago. These trends in

academic research have been brought to a

wider audience by popular authors such

as Jared Diamond. He argued, rather

controversially, that environmental

factors have been the major reason for

the collapse of complex societies since the

development of farming as the main

means of human subsistence during the

Neolithic era (c.5000 – c.2500 BC in

western Eurasia). His particular focus

was on the mismanagement of resources,

such as overconsumption, by human

societies and the damaging effects such

activities could inflict on their natural

environment, which made natural

phenomena such as climate change

exponentially more destructive. Diamond

was criticised for taking a selective and

pessimistic view of the past to mirror

contemporary fears about the future of

mankind, suggesting that the effects of

anthropogenic (man-made) climate

change and pollution would lead to the

inevitable collapse of modern capitalist

society. His rhetorical questioning of

whether previous civilisations would have

continued to thrive if they had looked

after their environment better failed to

appreciate how much continuity there

was amongst the supposedly disappeared

worlds. Evidence and relevance can be

awkward bedfellows sometimes.

Under the postwar influence of historians

such as Fernand Braudel of the French

‗Annales’ school, scholars are increasingly

coming to understand that the physical

landscape is a fundamental way of

understanding how human cultures

function. The natural world shapes the

way that we see the world and at its most

extreme some would argue that all

human activity is determined by its

environment. If so, then one must take

seriously the view that natural

catastrophes have been underestimated

in their capacity to shape human

development: a particularly powerful

example being volcanoes.

Volcanoes are created by the complex

chemistry within the earth as a result of

the energy store deposited by the earth‘s

cooling and the radioactive decay of

various elements that occur within the

earth‘s core. When the planet‘s tectonic

plates on its crust converge or diverge, a

gap is created which reduces the pressure

being applied on the swirling mix of

material below. This decompression leads

to the rocks under the earth‘s surface

melting (magma), and being pushed to

the surface, where it emerges in a

volcanic explosion bringing the melted

rock (lava) to the surface. There are on

average about 50 of these active every

year according to the Encyclopaedia of

Volcanos.

In Britain, volcanoes are exotic

phenomena distilled to us through our

education systems enduring fascination

with the written experiences of the

classical world, by which I mean the

eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79. The nubes

mirabilis heralding the destruction of

Pompeii by the ash cloud spewing into

the atmosphere is an enduring image

from my own schooldays, and while we

feel sorry for Caecilius and Cerberus, and

are appalled by the casts made of the ash

bodies, we find it difficult to comprehend

how devastating volcanoes can be. The

1902 eruption on St Martinique in the

Caribbean killed all but 1 of the 28,000

inhabitants of the town of St Pierre. The

eruption of Krakatoa in 1883 is estimated

that to have had the power of 13,000

atomic bombs. It is not only the initial

eruption which is the problem however.

The large amount of material ejected into

Left:

Krakatoa

The eruption

of Krakatoa

in 1883 is

estimated to

have had the

power of

13,000

atomic

bombs



the atmosphere by a volcanic explosion

can create a significant dust-veil effect in

the atmosphere which are regarded as

significant contributors to hemispheric

cooling. This is usually regarded as being

quite a short-term effect, as the dust is

soon washed out of the atmosphere.

However, the effects on the highest levels

of the stratosphere are much less well

known and there is also the important

point that modern studies are based on

medium-size volcanic eruptions. We don‘t

know how a large eruption would effect

the atmosphere.

While Pompeii and Herculaneum have

almost become singular paradigms of

settlements ‗lost‘ to volcanic explosions,

there are large numbers of similar

―Pompeii‖ sites that have been completely

covered by volcanic ash and have

subsequently been rediscovered. In

I c e land t he sma l l t ow n o f

Vestmannaeyjar is known as the

―Pompeii of the North.‖ It was covered by

the product of an eruption in 1973, and is

being systematically excavated by

archaeologists. Rather than being

exceptional events, one needs to take

volcanic activity seriously as an

important factor in the key turning points

in human affairs. The following are a few

high profile examples of eruptions that

may have changed the history of the

world.

There are two main areas of research

that have made the reconstruction of the

past climate possible. The first is the

study of tree rings which record growth of

trees dating back several thousands of

years. In good years the rings are thick,

and thinner in lean years. Many trees can

be dated quite accurately, so by taking a

broad range of samples one can match

years to growth rates. This data tells you

about local climate developments and

varies across the world in the quality of

research. Scandinavia and the USA tend

to have the best records thanks to their

trees and scientific research. A research

unit Queen‘s University Belfast under

Mike Baillie in the 1980s and 1990s

revolutionised this process by bring

together , and allow one to trace the

relative growth rates of trees across the

world which are good indicators of

changing climactic conditions. The other

important development was digging

through the ice sheets in Greenland,

where a record of each year in the earth‘s

atmosphere since the last Ice Age has

been frozen each year and preserved by

the next year‘s snowfall.

Analysis of this data revealed that

several years in the last 8000 years had

striking markers of severe climactic

shock. Were they the product of the

eruption of a super volcano?

Thera (c. 1550 BC – Middle/Late

Bronze Age)

One of the most intensely studied proto-

historical volcanic eruptions is that of

Thera (modern Santorini) which lies

70km to the north of Crete. The precise

dating of this eruption has been difficult

to ascertain with any precision, but it is

estimated to have erupted between 1650

and 1450 BC during the archaeological

period known as the Middle/Late Bronze

Age. The rocks and ash (tephra) produced

by the eruption column, along with the

huge tsunamis that were generated have

Below right:

Thera

(modern

Santorini)



been proposed as the reason for the

apparent collapse of Minoan civilisation

in Crete during this period.

Minoan civilisation, named after the

mythical King Minos (minotaurs,

labyrinths etc.), was a remarkably

wealthy culture that prospered on Crete

during the Bronze Age and was based on

enormous ‗palace complexes‘ spread

around the island. These hugely

impressive buildings are hard to

understand, but they seem to have been

the centre of a sophisticated

administration that organised the

surrounding countryside. The wealth and

political influence of Minoan Crete can be

seen throughout the eastern

Mediterranean, which has led scholars to

place it amongst the major civilisations of

the Near East in the second millennia

BC. There was a major shift at the end of

the ‗neopoalatial‘ period which saw

almost all the palace complexes destroyed

by fire, and the emergence of a very

distinct culture in the Late Bronze Age.

The most stunning testimony to the

eruption is the town of Akrotiri on the

south of Thera which was smothered by

the explosion and, just like Pompeii, the

fabric of the settlement was preserved.

This has made it an enormously

important site in understanding the

impact Minoan culture made on the

surrounding islands. The Greek

archaeologist Spryios Marinatos, who

later discovered Akrotiri, first proposed

the idea that Minoan civilisation was

destroyed by the eruption in 1939.

Pumice from Thera has been collected

across the eastern Mediterranean, while

the discovery of deep sea material such as

fossilised shells on dry land sites

contemporaneous with the eruption hints

at the effects of tsunamis estimated to

have reached the height of 12m. Some

scientists have claimed the explosion had

global consequences by affecting the

chemical balance of the earth‘s

atmosphere, leading to a major phase of

climate change which had effects as far

afield as China. There are suggestions

that the climate could have cooled

between 1⁰c and 2⁰c, which would have

led to cold and wet summers that ruined

harvests and brought economic disaster.

Claims that the events triggered by the

eruption of Thera laid historical

foundations for the story of Atlantis are

all very interesting, but such broad claims

of the possible always obscure the strong

likelihood of error when dealing with such

problematic evidence. A major problem

with the Minoan collapse theory is the

lack of any consensus amongst specialists

over the precise date of the eruption. The

latest radio-carbon dates for Thera

material tend to place the eruption

between 1660 – 1600 BC. This is

supported by the tree-ring data that has

been compiled over the last few decades.

On the other hand the archaeological

evidence which, thanks to trade links, has

strong support from Egyptian

chronologies would place the eruption a

century later. The other problem is

attributing everything to Thera. Evidence

from the Greenland ice sheets shows there

was a huge increase in sulphur emitted

into the atmosphere during this period,

which is consistent with large volcanic

eruption. There is no way of establishing

how the contribution of Thera was relative

to other volcanic eruptions in the world.

The physical evidence for the eruption is

itself ambiguous. Akrotiri is a mysterious

site, as no bodies were found there,

Below right:

The Icelandic

Hekla Volcano



leading to the assumption that the

inhabitants fled when they saw the

plume of smoke from the volcano.

Subsequent research has indicated that

the city had been destroyed by

earthquakes and partially (if not

completely) abandoned before the

eruption, which could explain the lack of

bodies at the city. Other scholars have

argued that evidence supports the idea

that Minoan society was actually able to

survive the calamity, whenever it

happened, and that the effects were

probably more local than regional. The

lack of chronological precision is a major

obstacle in attributing changes in the

material record to the Thera eruption.

Hekla 3

A parallel to the Thera eruptions can be

found at the transition from the Middle to

the Late Bronze Age between 1205BC –

1150BC when there was a major

transformation of the social and economic

landscape across the whole of western

Eurasia but particularly well documented

in the Eastern Mediterranean. Many

complex states, such as the Hittite

Empire and the Mycenaean kingdoms of

Greece, collapsed in the 12th century BC.

In the Near East several cities were

destroyed and not reoccupied and there

was a series of major military struggles in

Egypt between groups of peoples named

in the written sources as ―the Sea

Peoples‖ accompanied by severe famines.

Societal collapse is not unknown of

course, but what is particularly

interesting about this period is that it

took a long time for recovery to be

effected, and there is a subsequent ‗dark

age‘ in the sources which makes it hard to

know what is going on.

The effects are also striking in northern

Europe where many settlements were

abandoned at this time and there were

widespread patterns in the way that the

land was divided up. In Wessex a series

of ditches implying new division of the

landscape date to this point. All of this

implies a major revolution in the mental

world of the societies effected:

agricultural societies are notably

conservative and some major event may

have occurred that caused people to

abandon their previous belief system.

This would quite feasibly involved a

change in the organisation of their

previous political and religious hierarchy,

which would have been legitimised by the

ability to bring favourable climactic

conditions. Colin Burgess has argued

that this period in Britain saw a

population collapse on the same scale as

during the Black Death in the 14th

century.

These speculations on the cause of

objective changes have been attributed to

the environmental consequences of huge

volcanic eruptions in Iceland that are

believed to have occurred in Iceland at

the Hekla volcanic site. Tree ring data

has confirmed that there was a major

climactic shift datable to 1159 BC where

there was almost no growth, attributable

to a major biological catastrophe. This

confirmed atmospheric information

preserved in Greenland ice core which

had been analysed to show major increase

in the acidity of the atmosphere at the

same date suggest that a major event

occurred around 1159 BC. That

something happened during this period is

undeniable but actually linking the event

directly to the Hekla 3 eruption is

difficult. Once again there are a range of

alternative explanations for collapse:

disease, earthquakes, comets, harvest

failure, warfare etc. The whole theory of

collapse is itself problematic as it

coincides with a lack of written and

material evidence. Arguments from

silence are never the most robust ways of

making a case. While the eruption is still

cited by some historians, there is no

consensus on its effects.



Krakatoa AD 535

The journalist David Keys argued in his

book Catastrophe (2000) that the Ancient

World was brought to an end by a series

of environmental cataclysms caused by a

massive eruption in Krakatoa in 535

which tore Sumatra and Java apart. The

ash was of such intensity that it appears

to have impeded sunlight, something

testified by contemporary literary sources

from across the world. Tree-ring data

again shows an abnormal lack of growth

in 536 and again in 542 which points to

sudden short-term cooling. Some

archaeologists have likened it to a

‘nuclear winter‘. Keys suggests that the

various cataclysmic changes that are

recorded during the 6th century have

their root cause in this climactic shock:

famine, droughts, floods, storms. The

spread of the Early Medieval Pandemic

(which eliminated 35—45% of the

population of Eurasia) during the mid-6th

century was facilitated too. Keys argues

that the subsequent movement of

nomadic peoples across the world, most

spectacularly (but not exclusively) the

Arab conquests of the 7th century, were

a direct consequence of the weakening of

global social structures. While such an all

-compassing explanation is seductive,

there is no conclusive physical proof of an

eruption, and other explanations such as

a comet crashing into earth have been

suggested as alternatives. Keys‘ ties his

threads together ingeniously, but far too

neatly for it to be true.

Krakatoa 1883

While most of the examples cited so far

have been in the ancient world, it is

worth highlighting the most powerful

eruption in recent centuries, that of

Krakatoa in 1883. The eruption made the

largest sound in modern recorded history

and killed 36,000 people. The impact was

known about all over the world very

quickly thanks to developments in

communication technology. While some

political changes in the Indonesian

archipelago have been attributed to its

effects there is no-one arguing that the

First World War was caused by the

eruption, so perhaps scholars for earlier

periods should take note.

In conclusion….

These few examples suggest that any

singular claim of environmental

determinism must be treated with some

scepticism, given the problems of

understanding the precise effects of an

eruption, let alone accounting for the

myriad variables that effect historical

change. The evidence tends to be

interpreted to suit the preconceptions of

the author. If one believes in

environmental catastrophe as a major

changer of world events then one will see

the environmental evidence as the

footprint of a super-volcano. If one is a

sceptic then there is plenty of comfort for

you too. More research is clearly needed to

answer these questions. However, one

can no longer safely write human history

without detailed knowledge of the

physical environment.

Want to know more?

For more information on the Annales school

speak to Mr Harrison—he will happily talk to

you about their merits or read:

The Mediterranean in the Age of Philip II’ by

Fernand Braudel

For the various volcanoes discussed in this

article try:

‗Collapse’ by Jared Diamond

‗Catastrophe’ by David Keys

‘A Slice through Time: dendrochronology and

precision dating’ by Mike Baillie

‘‗Krakatoa‘ by Simon Winchester

Fun & Games


Do you think British women the most attractive?

YES

YES

Is celibacy the most important quality in a woman?

YES

Elizabeth I

NO

YES

Victoria

NO

Boudicca

NO

Do you fantasise about women in armour?

YES

‘Your wife is Catholic’. Do you

burn her?

YES Is black you favourite

colour?

Joan of Arc

NO

Catherine of Aragon

NO

Would you risk everything for

you wife?

Helen of Troy

NO

YES

Marie An-toinette

Find Your Perfect Wife

If you would like to write for the Shoardian, please send an email to one of the editorial

team or contact Mr Hern. Next issue after summer (next academic year) we will be look-

ing for articles on Asian history as well as reviews of books or historical school trips.

There will also be running a competition for Middle and Lower School with the best articles receiv-

ing rewards of some shape or form. Each contributor also receives a colour copy of the issue. If

you are interested, please contact the team at:[email protected], [email protected] heatsa-

[email protected] or [email protected]

Would You Like

to Write for the

Shoardian?

Obituary


The Legacy of Chavez

Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías was a complicated man, whose

policies and opinions provoked admiration and controversy

worldwide. Even after his untimely death in March this year, he

and his legacy continue to be the subject of intense debate far

beyond Venezuela’s borders.

Born to a poor family in 1954, Chávez had a

successful career in the military, but, increasingly

concerned by the income inequality and corruption

in Venezuela, decided to found the Movimiento

Bolivariano Revolucionario-200 with the aim of

deposing President Pérez, who carried out the

killing of three thousand protesters in 1989.

However, when the coup failed in 1992, once freed

from prison, he turned to conventional methods,

winning the presidential elections of 1998 with

56% of the vote, in a country ravaged by oligarchic

rule and devastating inequality.

During Chávez‘s four presidential terms,

Venezuela underwent a series of major socialist-

populist reforms with the aim of redistributing

wealth, which earned him both praise and

suspicion from the international community. The

1999 constitution guaranteed the rights of minority

groups for the first time, but also strengthened the

power of the president and the executive. In 2000,

he initiated Plan Bolívar, which involved the

military in anti-poverty measures such as mass

vaccinations and food distribution in slums, and

ordered the nationalization of key industries and

services, including telephone companies, electricity

utilities, and projects in the oil-rich Orinoco Belt,

one of the world‘s largest petroleum reserves.

Within South America, Chávez was instrumental

in the foundation of several institutions that

helped to unify the continent, most notably the

Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA), in

Venezuela‘s entry into the free trade area

Mercosur, and in the creation of Telesur, one of

Latin America‘s most comprehensive and impartial

– here I speak from personal experience – news

stations, and forged ties with fellow socialists such

as Fidel Castro in Cuba and Evo Morales in

Bolivia. His relations with the United States were

often strained and sometimes hostile, not least

when, during a 2002 attempted military coup

against Chávez, the US chose to recognize the

unelected businessman the generals chose in his

place: the irony of a supposedly pro-democratic

governement that rushed to support the military

overthrow of a democratically elected president

was not lost on the rest of the continent. Some

have suggested that it could have something to

with the fact that Chávez was attempting to use

Venezuela‘s rich oil reserves for the good of his own

people, rather than to ensure exorbitant profits for

US multinationals.

No doubt there were problems: corruption was a

huge one, as it always had been and remains,

though great progress was made during Chávez‘s

rule; crime has also risen, mainly due to organized

drug trafficking and police corruption. On the

other hand, the figures speak for themselves: from

1999 to 2013, extreme poverty dropped by 70%,

and total poverty was halved; Venezuela now holds

the continent‘s lowest Gini coëfficient, at 0.39,

making it the South American country with the

lowest inequality level (by comparison, the US is

0.45); GDP per capita rose from $4,100 in 1999 to

$10,810 in 2011; the list goes on and on. Noöne can

deny that Hugo Chávez made some mistakes

during his time in office, but he has provided not

just Latin America but the whole world with an

example of a leader who was not afraid to make

sacrifices for his people, to defy US imperial

ambitions in the region, and to provide 29 million

Venezuelans with a firm and passionate voice on

the international stage, a man whose legacy will

surely never be forgotten: ¡Hasta la victoria

siempre, Comandante!

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