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[NRDL]

What. 

[Caz]

You guys should read "Guns, Germs and Steel". It's a great book on why the world developed as it did and why certain powers on countries quickly built civilizations and industry while in other continents they're still running about with stone spears, or having a society that can't use the written word etc. Really interesting for speculation purposes.

What if Ögedei hadn't died when he did, and Subutai continued his conquest through Europe? Would we all be speaking Mongolian now? Doubtless to say the world would be a very different place.

[NRDL]

What if...

The Roman Empire ( Augustus Caesar's reign ) expanded even more than it did historically?

[micelus]

What if... Captain cook hadn't declared Australia terra nullius.

The British Empire would have taken it over saying that it's the white man's burden (or something like that) to teach the Aboriginals British sense, culture, and beliefs. The only thing I can see that would be of great change would be the chance that Australia would've been taken by another power or several powers.

You guys should read "Guns, Germs and Steel". It's a great book on why the world developed as it did and why certain powers on countries quickly built civilizations and industry while in other continents they're still running about with stone spears, or having a society that can't use the written word etc. Really interesting for speculation purposes.

What if Ögedei hadn't died when he did, and Subutai continued his conquest through Europe? Would we all be speaking Mongolian now? Doubtless to say the world would be a very different place.

The strength of the Mongolians were there horse archers and terror tactics. Now while horse archers are pretty much hell to other troops, they have a weakness: they're only really suitable on steppes or plains. Surely the Mongolian forces could charge through Hungary and perhaps even reach Central Europe, but there they would face different terrain. Mountains that cannot be easily traversed by horses. Now yes, of course it could be traveled by horse, but it's risky, which is why mountain cultures don't rely on horses that much.

With their main advantage becoming a disadvantage, the armies wouldn't be able to breach Germany, Italy, and the rest of Europe. They might have been able to sail to Italy and other parts of the region, but it's doubtful they would be able to hold their conquests.

Technology would surely be impacted; the Mongolians allowed cultures to mingle and trade new ideas with each other. Surely certain parts of Europe would have benefited.

It is also probable that a large number of Mongolians would have decided to stay in Europe...Which would be hard for me to discuss in-depth.

In short, the Mongolian forces would eventually be stopped by the terrain.

What if...

The Roman Empire ( Augustus Caesar's reign ) expanded even more than it did historically?

The stability of the empire would be called into question.

Expanding into the east would be suicidal; Persia (under the Parthians I think) were an empire in their own right and was a hard opponent, all through out history. I would believe that the Romans would be forced to sign a peace treaty eventually, although I doubt much would come of it.

Expanding into the north would be somewhat easier...It would take ages to subjugate the rest of Germany and the British Isles and even more for Scandinavia. If somehow  they were all conquered, it would be difficult to rule. The organisation, the military spending...The supplying of the legions and officials...

Expanding south would be...useless. All the good land is miles and miles south, way too far out of reach.

In short, expansion would hurt and probably be reversed in a few years time.


I'm done. My answers might not make sense, but I wasn't really trying to be articulate.

My turn...

What if...

The crusaders of the 4th Crusade had had enough funding to pay Venice for their ships and not had to go and pillage Constantinople?

[mainiac]

You guys should read "Guns, Germs and Steel". It's a great book on why the world developed as it did and why certain powers on countries quickly built civilizations and industry while in other continents they're still running about with stone spears, or having a society that can't use the written word etc. Really interesting for speculation purposes.

Guns, Germs and Steel is one of the worst books I have ever read in my life.  I uses a large amount of research to construct a giant convoluted structure of assumption and downright stupidity as to some of the more basic parts of history.  Every single point it makes in the book has hundreds of counter examples throughout history because history isn't a game of civilization where one civilization has a +2 in one attribute and the other has +2 in another.

It is appealing however because history is so huge that by cherry picking examples you can create a convincing narrative for whatever you right.  But that narrative is just wrong.  Sometimes history is based on events and chance and without them things would be very different.  By ignoring this rather elementary reasoning, Guns, Germs and Steel is reverting history back to the pseudoscientific rubbish that would get published a hundred years ago, dividing the world into different races and creating a narrative about them.  All it does is replace the races with geography.  But GEOGRAPHY DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY.

Back to the OT, I don't think that the olive branch petition was all that big a deal.  Even without the Adams letter, I think it wouldn't have worked.  But assuming that the revolution could have been avoided at some point along the line...

Without independence the US would have a lot less immigration without many French, Germans or Italians.  Canada would have even less as their English immigrants would have gone to the US, leaving Canada a land for French and Irish.  Irish would probably still be a common language today in Canada which would be pretty really cool.

Things would have gotten very unpredictable in the 1820s around the time that the US started industrializing historical.  England would have been industrializing but the question is how they would affect the American attempts to industrialize.  They had a policy of deliberately sabotaging Indian industrialization.  If they tried to implement such a policy in America after granting the Americans a degree of autonomy and independence in 1775, it would be quite the ugly scene.  All the while you have the drums of emancipation beating, scaring the southern aristocracy.  But would England maybe facilitate American industrialization?  They wouldn't like the competition but at the same time this is when they were moving towards free trade.  It's really quite difficult to guess how the issue would play out because it's impossible to know how the political winds would blow.

[mainiac]

What if Ögedei hadn't died when he did, and Subutai continued his conquest through Europe? Would we all be speaking Mongolian now? Doubtless to say the world would be a very different place.

The Mongolians were horse archer steppe nomads.  Horse archer steppe nomads were known in Europe for thousands of years at this point.  Just because a few nations were caught off guard by unfamiliar tactics doesn't mean that they would continue to get lucky forever.  There are plenty of steppe nomad horse archer empires through history.

When you keep getting lucky and dont have any historical reference, you tend to get stupid and think you are invincible.  But the odds would have caught up with the Mongolians sooner or later.  After that, their empire would have fallen apart pretty much exactly the way it did historically, with only a remnant held at the edges of the christian world until eventually the Russians or someone else decide they want the land and evict the nomads.

[USEC_OFFICER]

You guys should read "Guns, Germs and Steel". It's a great book on why the world developed as it did and why certain powers on countries quickly built civilizations and industry while in other continents they're still running about with stone spears, or having a society that can't use the written word etc. Really interesting for speculation purposes.

What if Ögedei hadn't died when he did, and Subutai continued his conquest through Europe? Would we all be speaking Mongolian now? Doubtless to say the world would be a very different place.

The strength of the Mongolians were there horse archers and terror tactics. Now while horse archers are pretty much hell to other troops, they have a weakness: they're only really suitable on steppes or plains. Surely the Mongolian forces could charge through Hungary and perhaps even reach Central Europe, but there they would face different terrain. Mountains that cannot be easily traversed by horses. Now yes, of course it could be traveled by horse, but it's risky, which is why mountain cultures don't rely on horses that much.

Which is why the Germans and French were renowned for their infantry in the Middle Ages.

If the Mongols kept on advancing into Western Europe then the best hope for France and the Holy Roman Empire would have been to fortify any mountain passes they had and preparing their battlegrounds carefully. In a field battle on anything approaching open terrain the Mongols would have had the upper hand. The key strength of the European armies would have been their heavy cavalry, which could sweep aside enemy infantry but were too slow to catch the faster Mongolian horse archers. Unless the Mongolians made a mistake and were lured into a trap or caught against a river or some other geographical feature, the Europeans would have no way to counter the Mongol horse archers. Their bow technology was no match for the Mongolian's, and trying to beat the Mongolians at their own game would have been suicidal.

I'm not saying that it would be impossible for the Europeans to win. Look at the Battle of Lechfeld. In the battle the Germans managed to defeat the Magyars, who are nomadic steppe nomads, once and for all. But to win the battle the Hungarians made the mistake of crossing the Lech river, allowing themselves to be trapped between the river and the German cavalry. If the Europeans were to defeat the Mongolians, they would have to use similar tactics. Catch the Mongolians against a piece of impassible terrain and then smash them.

What if...

The crusaders of the 4th Crusade had had enough funding to pay Venice for their ships and not had to go and pillage Constantinople?

They would have reached the Holy Land and accomplish nothing. All the crusades after the fourth one accomplished nothing, and the Ayyubids would have probably stopped their quarrelling to face the crusaders, even if only for a little while.

[mainiac]

What if...
The crusaders of the 4th Crusade had had enough funding to pay Venice for their ships and not had to go and pillage Constantinople?

They would have reached the Holy Land and accomplish nothing. All the crusades after the fourth one accomplished nothing, and the Ayyubids would have probably stopped their quarrelling to face the crusaders, even if only for a little while.

There would have been the slight detail of the Roman empire not getting wrecked.  I think that's what he was getting at.

[Digital Hellhound]

It wasn't in a very good shape at that point anyhow. Not much would've changed, it was only a matter of time.

[mainiac]

Without the 4th crusade, the Roman control over the Greek world (including much of what is now Turkey) would have remained quite firm.  It's possible that a later emperor would have fucked things up but it's possible that a later emperor could have been quite competant as well.  With a decent power base I see nothing inevitable about the decline.  Especially if they were getting support from the crusaders.  The Romans would have had a situation akin to most medieval countries except they would have been richer, had a professional army and had more of a national identity.  They were in much less of a decline then many kingdoms.

Even if the Romans ever lost control of Turkey, they would have an easy time defending the straits with a unified greek mainland.  Then they could launch a reconquista a decade or two later as they had done so repeatedly in the past.  The turkish people were very nomadic and couldn't take on a technically advanced navy like the romans had pre-4th crusade.  Even if Turkey wasn't taken back, it would take a long, long time for an invasion of the Greek mainland to follow.  And during the half century that the Nicean emperors were spending retaking Thrace they could have been instead reasserted control over Turkey, meaning that the Crusader kingdoms would have been much less surrounded and much harder nuts to crack.  It's even conceivable that they might have survived for centuries as Roman vassals if the empire was solidified and had friendly neighbors to the west and north.

So it's very likely that without the 4th crusade the Roman empire would have survived for hundreds of years longer.

[ChairmanPoo]

What if Ögedei hadn't died when he did, and Subutai continued his conquest through Europe? Would we all be speaking Mongolian now? Doubtless to say the world would be a very different place.

The Mongolians were horse archer steppe nomads.  Horse archer steppe nomads were known in Europe for thousands of years at this point.  Just because a few nations were caught off guard by unfamiliar tactics doesn't mean that they would continue to get lucky forever.  There are plenty of steppe nomad horse archer empires through history.

When you keep getting lucky and dont have any historical reference, you tend to get stupid and think you are invincible.  But the odds would have caught up with the Mongolians sooner or later.  After that, their empire would have fallen apart pretty much exactly the way it did historically, with only a remnant held at the edges of the christian world until eventually the Russians or someone else decide they want the land and evict the nomads.

Furthermore, I think there are historical analogies that would support this: Charlemagne also used cavalry based armies (albeit of a different sort), and had lots of trouble in regions with rough terrain and/or fortified cities (eg: his Spanish campaign fiasco).
Another example would be Kublai Khan's failed campaigns in Vietnam, for simmilar reasons.