Ye Olde Staging Point

I am simultaneously intrigued and annoyed by questions of alternate history. I'm intrigued because I think it's simply human nature to look at the past and wonder what might have happened had things gone just slightly differently. On the other hand, I get annoyed at most attempts at proposing alternate histories because most of them focus on specific events without considering the historical context in which those events played out.

For example, to continue with the World War 2 theme, it is common for historians (both lay and professional) to make sweeping claims about the outcome of World War 2 being based on specific events. If Germany had only captured Moscow in their initial invasion of Russia, Russia would have collapsed and the Axis' victory assured. If only Hitler had not critically delayed the German advance during the initial stages of Barbarossa, the Germans would have captured Moscow (see previous sentence). If only the Japanese had taken out the U.S. carrier group in the Pearl Harbor attack, the U.S. would never have been able to defeat them. If only Rommel had been allowed to respond to the D-Day invasion, the assault would have failed and the Allies would have been forced to sue for an armistice. If only... if only... the war would have turned out completely differently.

All of these conjectures are interesting, but the tendency in all these cases (and there are many more) is to place ludicrously disproportionate importance on specific events that in almost all cases were the results of a slew of historical processes, not the cause of those processes. In my reading, I have come to adopt a somewhat deterministic view of history: individual battles, events, and decisions often seem to have had major impacts on the development of subsequent history, but a closer examination of the historical contexts usually reveals that those events are usually more like symptoms of already-developing historical situations than they are catalysts for them.

Resisting the urge to imbue each major event in World War 2 with apocalyptic import, we see that in many cases, the outcomes were all but predetermined. If Hitler had managed to capture Moscow in the first waves of Barbarossa, the Soviet Union might have collapsed... but it's far likely that Soviet forces would have simply retaken it from badly weakened German occupiers within months, and the war would have dragged on just as it did in real history. It's possible that Germany might have taken Moscow if they hadn't delayed around Smolensk, but a host of other factors--extreme cold, crippling supply problems, slowly growing Soviet competence in the face of the invasion, and others--would still have had to be overcome somehow. The Japanese might have extended the war by six months or so with a more successful Pearl Harbor attack, but that wouldn't have affected the insurmountable natural resource shortages that had already doomed their war effort. Rommel might have made a difference in the D-Day invasion, but a host of other factors--not the least of which are things like Allied air superiority over Europe--would have conspired so as to make the end result--disaster for the Germans--the same. And even if the D-Day invasion had been repulsed, it's not like Germany's myriad other problems (which were by this point fast approaching Berlin in the form of Soviet tanks) would have simply vanished and given them victory.

No, in almost all of these cases, major battles and events were simply the icing on the cake, historically speaking. Economic, cultural, and geographic factors had more or less decided the course of events far in advance, such that savage Axis defeats later in the war simply played into unfolding historical patterns; they were not miraculous opportunities whereby the Axis might have totally reversed the oncoming tide of history. Germany lost badly at Kursk and Stalingrad because of already-existing deficiencies in supply, command, and strategy; the defeats did not magically doom the German war efforts in and of themselves. The same could be said for each of the many naval defeats Japan suffered as the Pacific War ground onwards; in each case, their defeats were generally fairly natural and predictable outcomes of years of bad strategy and foolish decisions. Barring something truly, massively surprising (it would have to involve nuclear weapons), these battles and decisions were simply determining how soon the war would end, not whether or not it would. Might the Axis have extended the war by a few months? Sure. But after the start of the war, there was only one way for them to go, and that was down. History had already decreed it, and while they could hope to slightly rearrange the outcome, the "big picture" was not likely to change unless a whole host of new factors came into play.

All this is to say that, short of massive evidence to the contrary, I try to avoid speaking of specific historical events as if they were all crucial turning points. Making wild claims about how history would have been completely different if particular events had gone differently is irresponsible and requires that you close your eyes to that most important of considerations--context.