@@junn805 Depends on who you ask. The average state of gamers is "disgruntled" at best these days. aka they tend to hate newer stuff. Bur as megaton said, it has more content, mainly Republics being playable too.
@@HDreamer As a CK3 player who tried CK2, the biggest sticking point for me was just how dated the game looks. I'm not even a stickler for graphics but it is VERY hard to go from CK3's fidelity down to CK2 which I could barely read.
Have to point out something Cody forgot in his analysis of a potential British intervention in the civil war. Cassius Clay, the American ambassador to Russia negotiated a deal with Emperor Alexander II that not only resulted in the US acquiring Alaska but an agreement that they would declare war on the UK and France if they officially recognized the Confederacy, with the Russian Navy even dispatched to the East and West coasts of the US with sealed orders that likely contained instructions to attack/blockade the Confederacy in the event Britain or France intervened. It's hard to imagine it in today's post cold war political climate but there was a time where Russia and the US had really close ties to one another.
I don't know much about Russian naval power in the 1860s, so take this for what it's worth, but I doubt the British would've considered the Russian navy a major threat. Granted, they didn't want war in the first place, but if Russia declared war on France and Britain, I don't think the Russian navy would be able to take on one of them, let alone both. Cassius Clay was badass though, Fat Electrician did an awesome video about him
@@johnmcmanus2447 the main issue with confederate getting help from brittian is that they would first have to free the slave. at this period was active ant slavery so part of the issue they would have is changing there stance on the reason the war started in the first place.
@Marveryn oh yeah for sure, I was just commenting on the idea that Russia declaring war on two of the most powerful countries in Europe would be a threat. Britain had one of the most powerful navies in the world, while Russia would lose their entire Baltic fleet in about 40 years to the Japanese. The Confederates were never getting British or French help. Unless they freed the slaves, which would both collapse the southern economy and be a complete reversal of the whole reason for secession in the first place
I think you are taking Alternate History to mean "Assume any Hypothetical you want" and He is looking for scenarios with the minimal necessary divergance from our timeline.
In addition, he's looking for scenarios that he finds interesting. Alexander conquering Rome centuries before it rises only to probably lose it again after he dies just doesn't change much. My guess is an alternate title for his video could be "10 videos I tried to make that didn't work out".
I think it's more "Assume people only make decisions that they might actually make and the outcomes of any dispute still be realistic". An example would be the one about Italy siding with the Central Powers. Maybe they would've joined them if Austria had offered them Italian-speaking territories, but would the Austrians ever have been willing to offer them, given they don't know they're going to lose the war if they don't, and consider who was in charge in Austria and what their values were. Yes, Alexander the Great could've decided to conquer Rome, but his father had promised the Greeks revenge against the Persians and that promise was a unifying force and so he'd never have chosen not to attack Persia.
Chris, read the letters between the Japanese Secretary of State and the minister to the Soviet Union. The Supreme council refused to believe the Soviets would declare war. It is literally insane to look at the translations, they sound like there were written by mad men. Which describes the half the Supreme Council well.
Reminds me of how Stalin refused to believe that Hitler would violate their Non-Aggression Pact, during the initial hours of the invasion. He genuinely believed that if there was an invasion it would have been in 1946.
i wouldn't trust translations so willy nitty, speaking from personal expirience translations usually aren't quite perfect enough to really trust wether it was very unimportant or *very* important. I would reccomend asking a proficiant bilingual native speaker to double check if the translations are good or not before using it as a source.
Chris, the nazis were never invading America due to lack of Naval capabilities. And invading the US is much more complex than invading Russia. 1.) you have to cross an ocean and perform a sea invasion. 2, there are multiple mountain ranges and different types of terrain compared to the European plain that pretty much makes up almost all of European Russia
Yeah, considering some analysts and historians think Operation Sea Lion would've been such a disaster for the Nazis that it would've *shortened* the war, the logistical nightmare of invading and occupying the continental United States would've been incomprehensible.
@@graffitisamuraiyea I was gonna say, if they failed even beating the British Air Force and didn't have a good navy, what chance does Germany have even crossing the Atlantic Ocean?? Even if Germany say land troops in the East Coast of US, they'd just get slaughtered by the American defense and Air Force.
And given that Germany lost WW2 the second they stepped foot into the USSR (or, more accurately, the second Britain backed Poland) there was _no_ chance they would ever get CLOSE to the US: he also says that the USSR was larger than the USA which, while true, is less salient (pun intended) of a point than I think he thinks. The axis powers never planned to occupy the entirety of the USSR. Japan wanted Siberia, realistically as far as Lake Baikal; Germany only wanted to reach Arkhangelsk in the north and astrakhan in the south. the soviet union would still have control (for how long? who knows?) over Kazakhstan, central Asia, and central Russia: including areas west of the Ural Mountains. I also disagree with his take that Germany andJapan could invade the US if the US could invade them.Tthe united states had an absolutely _massive_ fleet and produced, what, 12 carriers a year? Not only could japan never ever _ever_ win the Pacific War, but even if the US fleet was somehow destroyed then Japan could not only capitalize on the few months they'd have nor did they have the ability and supplies to facilitate a D-Day size landing on Hawai'i, let alone the West Coast. Germany was boxed in by the Royal Navy, and the Kriegsmarine was incredibly understaffed, underfunded, and inefficient. They also have the USSR to contend with, who they would never be able to defeat after 1930 at the absolute earliest.
Alexander the Great had absolutely no reason to go West. His causus belli was against Persia, part of the reason why his troops were starting to mutiny towards the end of his campaign was that he was going into India, which they frankly had no reason to invade. Furthermore, the Mediterranean and Northern Africa just lacked both the sheer wealth and prestige of Persia, which was the single greatest power in the region. Could he have gone there instead of East? Yes. But unless you massively change the timeline to such an extent that Alexander the Great even being born requires an ASB, it's just not happening. Similarly with Rome. Rome was built on slavery, and towards its later life was completely socially stratified. The flaws that brought it down were inherent to the system. Changing that would mean changing Rome into something that is distinctly not "Roman". Especially the argument you bring forth, that if Rome remained strong it could have industrialized is faulty. A strong Rome has no reason to improve. It'd be like Qing China, whose elites refused to reform the country even with existential pressures put upon them, but without said existential pressures. So why would anyone who can change anything change anything? There's no reason for them to do so. You ironically fall into the same fallacy you point out in believing that progress would just happen. To get rid of slavery, to develop the scientific method, to fundamentally change society to allow for social mobility, all of these things happened in our timeline in Europe due to a series of compounding happy circumstances, and even there they were anything but guaranteed. Without those circumstances, why would Rome go through these same developments? Again, ASB interference would be required. As for Italy, while I have seen some calculations that Germany could have hypothetically made up for the loss of coal if it joined the war on the side of the Central Powers, it would a) still be risking total economic collapse, and b) requires the Habsburgs to give up territory that they see as theirs, which after all the humiliations and defeats they aren't willing to, and if you expect German diplomatic finesse to find a compromise I have a bridge to sell you. Finally, while yes, there was a coup in Japan, it was small and fizzled out. The leadership knew they were done for, and between the bombing and Soviet invasion of Manchuria any hope for a negotiated settlement had gone out the window. Potential History (IIRC) made a video about why the Japanese surrendered where he goes into that.
Yea italy might join germany and austria if given tyrol but there is no way in hell, in my opinion that austria giving parts of tyrol or wholesail tyrol away. The austrians would not let their goverment live that down.
Also the fact that the Western Mediterranean region, including most of Western Europe, was seen for thousands as years as being economically poorer relative to the East. In fact, Western Europe didn't start slowly becoming the economic powerhouse it is now until arguably the late Middle Ages and Renaissance period.
@@johnmcmanus2447 according to what I found online because I also didn't know what it meant, ASB stands for Alien Space Bats. From what I can see it means the theory would require significant outside interference to actually occur from an outside force like a alien
Keep in mind that the top 10 scenarios are from his viewers then he evaluated for the video. Some of the scenarios are popular alternate history theories within the community.
Will definitely defend Cody on the last scenario. The Nazi's couldn't even invade Brittan which was only ~50-60 Miles away. Meanwhile the Allies with Overwhelming air and naval still had many struggles on D-day. Germany could never hope to invade the USA. Japan had better odds than them, but their navy and industrial capacity was still woeful compared to the USA. Even if they somehow win key battles, their Asian Empire would be HUGE at around 700 million people. No way they could bother the invading the USA without imploding from overextension.
I think there is no scenario where Japan invades the US in the second world war (which is what the scenario is about) but I think that possibly after a few decades of consolidation of their "co-prosperity sphere" there is a very(!) fringe scenario (no atomic weapons for the US would be a necessity) where an axis victory in ww2 could eventually lead to an invasion of the US with the asian industry outperforming the US'. (Now why they would attack the US after decades of peace and probably trade, I don't know... they probably hate them for their freedom or maybe descendants of the interned japanese come to the new empire, to partake in it's prosperity and tell stories of how their parents were mistreated or the seemingly futile loss of life in the pacific theatre leads to even greater racism against asian americans and the conflict escalates... someone will come up with something that works at least for a short novel :D).
Furthermore, mainland USA's climate is extremely volatile. You have the deserts towards the West, Cascadian and Appalachian Mountains, freezing temperatures of Alaska and some Northern States. Disregarding supply chain and the superior American Navy
@@Utopia7281 No, the USA climate is not extremely volatile. The Mojave's climate, Alaskan climate, Cascadia climate, the Appalachian climate is relatively stable. The most unstable climate would be in the Southeastern region which is subject to being hit with hurricanes and tropical storms. The West's climate is so stable, it's the reason California is the most populous state currently.
25:00 By the time of the war, Italy didn't consider the Alliance as valid anymore. They had agreed to continue it solely to prevent Austria from invading any of their lands, but they made it very clear that they considered Austria as enemies and aggressors. Austria had invaded the Balkans without complying with the terms of the treaty, and when Italy complained, Austria basically told them to shut up and deal with it.
Also a big thing people forget is the Ottoman empire, Italy literally just went to war with them prior to WW1 and joining their side was probably seen in a bad light.
Yeah the Italians were in a bad spot. They hated Vienna and Constantinople, but they were afraid to break with them. Once the war started, they saw their chance to break free and not risk immediate invasion by the Habsburgs. They made an absolute killing as trade intermediaries for a while, too, which helped their economy.
I love it when Chris does anything alternate history. He always has an amazing and unique perspective. So excited to see what it is. It's also becoming less common to find a less extreme perspective on historical subjects. Yet Chris manages to do so. Perfection.
For Italy, the Triple Alliance only had some convenience for them. Italians fought numerous wars against Austria mostly in rebellion against theie rule. And held on to strategic areas containing ethnic Italians which they desired. Austria-Hungary can't risk collapsing itself by allowing even just one ethnicity to secede. Both countries (in their desires) were mortal enemies who were kept at bay by their alliance to Germany.
It wouldn't be a secession of an ethnicity, it'd be trading land for an alliance. Wholly different. One is involuntary, the other is a diplomatic play.
@@Rommel12 If the Austrians were willing to give land to the Italians, it would give other countries who have people in Austrian territory a reason to also demand land from Austria as well.
"US did the same to Germany and Japan" The US also had way a better capacity for Naval production than both Germany and especially Japan, and had both Britain and its own territories in the Pacific to stage their invasions.
I have to disagree with you regarding the point that if Rome survived, industrialisation would have happened sooner. Rome had some fundamental flaws going back to their early days, that were core parts of their identity (connection between military and politics, slavery monopolised by a few elites causing the poor rural countryside to flee to the cities, etc.). Rome was destined to fall centuries before it it did in our timeline, and it was necessary, in my opinion, as it hard-reset society. Rome has been stagnating for a very long time, and that's the reason why it fell. The fall of rome brought new societies and new views, which ultimately led to progress beyond what rome achieved. Rome couldn't have just grown and developed into infinity, and there isn't one simple thing you just need to change and everything is perfect now. It had a disloyal army, power-hungry generals, a poor unemployed population, massive social spending to feed the poor, slavery monopolised by elites. All of this causing instability and general stagnating.
Precisely. You need to radically reshape Roman culture, politics, society and academia to even have the foundations of a Roman Industrial Revolution, but by that point, why are you even still calling it Roman when it’s clearly not anymore? We have a debate about whether the Byzantine Empire is Roman but there’d be none about this prospective state, it would have the trappings of Rome at best, but otherwise bear no similarity to it at all.
i honestly think there's a decent position to make industrialization happen earlier: not while rome is still around, but perhaps if rome collapses in the crisis of the third century. an earlier roman collapse could realistically lead to an earlier end to the landlord-slave class system that rome embodied. if feudalism arises in, say, the fifth century instead of the ~eighth, then the bourgeois and proletarian bases necessary for capitalism and therefore widespread industrialization could come a couple centuries earlier. burghers by the 1200s, not by the 1500s; capitalism by the 1400s, not the 1700s. heck, maybe we'd even come full circle and go to proletarian class rule. impossible to guess, hard to theorize about, and impossible to envision what form it would take (would it even _happen?_ marx himself is already near impossible to exist in this timeframe, let alone theorists who contributed more to the theorization of proletarian dictatorship like engels and lenin. it could be permanent barbarism; global fascism, or at the very least class-collaboration [which makes up a MASSIVE foundation of fascism and the main motivation for it to arise, but i digress]).
@@piyo744 And this is the problem with commies; You think history is a maths equation where everything is predestined to happen with it simply being a matter of when, not if, and never once entertain for a second that you’re all completely wrong - which is why you persist with failed ideas even in the face of the century of failure. No, you don’t get historical developments which happened in our timeline simply because Rome collapses earlier. Without the specific tribes and ethnic groups which make up the landscape of post-Roman Europe, we have no idea what kinds of social, economic or political systems might arise. Hell, without Constantine and Theodosius making Christianity the official religion of the Empire, it’s possible paganism remains a dominant force within society, which RADICALLY alters the way history plays out compared to our timeline. Without the Roman weakness allowing for Frankish invasions, we don’t get Charlemagne. Without Charlemagne, we don’t get the HRE. Without the HRE, we don’t get independent cities that allow for powerful merchants and burghers to arise in the first place. These things are not destined to happen and it’s delusional Marxist fantasy to pretend that human nature can be rationalised that way, when every piece of evidence says the exact opposite.
For someone who's not trying to be difficult, you're doing a fantastic job. Like so many of the things you say could happen just couldn't have, logistically; you're not taking events in the context of what came before.
11:55 Keep in mind tho that by this time the vast majority of Danes in todays England have either been assimilated or massacred by Æthelred the Unready in the St. Bride’s Day massacre in 1002, or the Oxford massacre in 1004.
I think the issues you have with the premises are because you two are coming at this from completely different angles. You immediately accept the premise as its handed to you, someone says "What if Italy joined the Central Powers?" And you go "OK, Italy is in the Central Powers, now what happens?" Where as Cody is looking for IF there was the POTENTIAL of the scenario happening in our timeline. If we're continuing with the Italy example Cody is making the argument that so many PoD's would need to occur and the nations would need to act so "out of character" so to speak that there was never a chance of it happening. Same with High Castle at the end. He's not asking "What if history happened like in the book?", if you want that just read the book. It's "If somehow the Axis Powers won WW2 would the same events as Man in the High Castle happen?" And the answer is no. And both approaches are valid and useful, I just think you missed opportunities to commentate in this video because you kept arguing with the premise instead of analyzing it
The thing with 'What if Rome industrialises?' is that it relies on another question being answered first, like 'What if Rome lasted longer?' Same thing with Harald conquering England, you would need to ask, 'What if Harald defeated William when he had the chance?' What could possibly be happening is that people are interpreting questions like these differently. You might catagorise some things as being applicable to the question at hand whereas he might think that they're vastly different things that require their own question. Not to invalidate your view, because you do bring questions that I hadn't even considered before and your expertise on history is very helpful to understanding it better.
I think the main issue is he didn't consider some of these questions himself. Like he plays devil's advocate by saying Rome possibly could've industrialized if it lasted longer when that itself requires the scenario of Rome lasting longer in the first place.
I think with the Rome and steam power scenario he was more talking about most alt history is down to a single domino event. But to get the Romans to steam power is so many specic dominos the scenario becomes so many different what elifs because of the requirements it becomes a mess. I do think Rome could have industrialized but it would have taken a startling event and then a series of lucky chances to cause it
I vaguely remember a different youtuber expanding on the lack of social mobility as the main factor for there not to be an Industrialisation. Basically the only people who had the ressources to do it, didn't have the interest because they were rich anyway. So as Chris said it, it's "the Rome we know" that could have never industrialised, maybe a potential Rome 600 years down the line could have, but that is - as you said - depended on a lot of requirements and the inability of Roman society to change, was kinda shown in it's decline and fall. Honestly it sometimes feels like a miracle that they lasted this long, considering the infighting, backstabbing and betraying of allies going on.
also im no expert but wasnt rome already on the decline even befiore 400 ad, how do we know rome would have kept advancing rather than just "delaying the inevtitable" if it wasnt attila the hun it would have been someone else?
@@username.exenotfound2943 Definitely. Rome was on the decline for a VERY long time. Hell 200 years before it almost collapsed. So I guess the point of divergence wouldn't be so late. Maybe something that would cause the empire not to have the cluster duck that was it's decline.
@@xytech7432 Depends what you count as Rome. The Eastern half of the empire went on strong for several centuries more and then had its own drawn out decline.
@HDreamer I count both. And while it did go strong, it did not and I'd go far as to say could not reach what the WHOLE Roman empire could. For the best chances, the divergence has to be when Rome was united.
36:25 yes they are an ocean away and it needed the full economic Power of the US, springboards closer to the target and in the case of Germany a big chunk of the enemy forces being occupied elsewhere, to pull the Invasion off. Considering both Germany and Japan would have been busy trying to hold together what they conquered, aka large regions of land with people who are not loyal to their new overlords, the specific Man in the High-Castle scenario is just not realistic. Maybe 2 or 3 Generations down the road, so a year 2k Invasion, but that would still have been difficult. Also I think he means "the author didn't think too hard about how this scenario would happen and where the actual borders would be", when he talked about the map not being meant to be accurate.
To me "The Man in the High Castle " is similar to "1984". It uses alternative history as a means to tell the story. Like how Star Trek uses space travel,
I do post/consulting on Mesoamerican (Aztec, Maya etc) history and archeology: "Sunset Invasion" is obviously impossible, but I have issues with the specific reasons Cody gives (mainly, his description of how Aztec warfare worked is outdated, and he conflates unrelated cultures), and I also wanted to respond to some of the commentary you gave, which is where I'll start: It's true the Aztec specifically are a very recent culture and empire (by most definitions, forming between 1200-1420AD), but Mesoamerica DOES have civilizations going back many thousands of years, including in the same exact valley that would become the core of the Aztec Empire (and where Mexico City is today): EX: Tlatilco was an early town with Olmec influences there around 1500-400BC (using the widest date ranges). A few centuries after that, Cuicuilco developed as a large city before volcanic eruptions around 0-200AD displaced people in the valley who concentrated into Teotihuacan (the second largest city after Cuicuilco). Teotihuacan then exploded in size, and at its height in 400-500AD, had 100,000 denizens; a ~20sqkm planned grid; complex waterworks and plumbing; with almost its whole population living in fancy palace compounds. It's art and architectural style spreads spreads down as far as Guatemala, where they may have even conquered some Maya city-states Teotihuacan declines from what seems to be a civil uprising around 550-650AD, and Central Mexico balkanizes into a few smaller-medium sized kingdoms ruled by cities like Xochicalco, Cantona, Tula (often said to be the capital of the Toltecs, who the Aztec describe as a utopian intellectual civilization which existed from 700-1100AD, but these accounts are heavily mythologized), etc. Around 1200AD Nahuatl speaking nomads migrate in from Northwestern Mexico, adopting local urban statehood, and forming Aztec civilization as we know it. The "Aztec Empire" specifically formed when the cities of Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan overthrew their capital of Azcapotzalco in the late 1420s and then maintained an alliance for subsequent expansionism So yeah, even if you ignore other parts of Mesoamerica and the Olmec, Maya, Zapotec, Mixtec, Totonacs, Purepecha, etc, the actual area the Aztec were centered in had civilization for 2000-2500+ years, even if the Aztec specifically where migrants to that area recently Okay, so that aside, what about AltHistoryHub's video? As I alluded to before, he conflates the Aztec with the Inca, even though the Inca are an Andean civilization, while the Maya, Aztec etc are Mesoamerican. The two regions had little contact and are as far apart as London is from Baghdad. Even for the Aztec specifically, his point about their mindset of warfare being different, focused on captive taking and Flower Wars, isn't accurate: While those were parts of Aztec warfare, they were not things all Aztec militarism revolved around The Aztec's main goal in expansion was getting goods like gold, cacao, jade, fine feathers, obsidian etc by forcing city-states and kingdoms into relatively hands off tax-paying arrangements. It's not my area, so the comparison might be off, but it's sorta like with the Mongols where if you coughed up taxes, you mostly got left alone to self-manage, but if you didn't, you'd get invaded. Even when a city did refuse/resist, or even when subjects stopped paying taxes, the Aztec response was (usually) not instant escalation to razing, massacres, and mass enslavement: They did that stuff sometimes (especially if a city incited OTHERS to also stop paying taxes), but usually just demanded steeper taxes the more a city resisted prior to it finally being conquered, and even in those cases still usually left local rulers and laws in place, though sometimes they did place military governors onto subjects or soldiers in garrisons to dissuade rebellions This sort of hands-off arrangement was typical in Mesoamerica: There were no draft animals, and the terrain was mostly highland valleys and mountains or lowland jungles and swamps. Long distance administration and campaigns were difficult, you so it was easier to be hands off and leave local power in place and coerce it, then to order things in a top down manner. But if you're razing cities, burning fields, enslaving or sacrificing whole populations, how are they gonna cough up the cacao, gold, etc? You're spending significant manpower to trek and carry supplies on foot with no draft animals, across difficult terrain terrain just to annihilate the place you're trying to take advantage of and then have to rebuild or repopulate it. That's simply not efficient and wasn't how they normally did things. If what they cared about was mostly collecting captives for sacrifice, then that wouldn't be a concern. But the primary goal was economics (both to get resources, and to then flex that economic network to court political marriages and alliances, constant expansion also flexed military power: With this hands-off political system, the only thing stopping subjects and vassals from seceding is that carrot-and-stick) and we see the Aztec specifically target city-states and kingdoms with rich economic resources during their expansion. They conquered Xoconusco/Soconusco, all the way down in Chiapas, almost Guatemala, to secure as a source of Cacao, for example. Demanding captives/slaves as taxes wasn't common either: For example, it only shows up ONCE in the Codex Mendoza compared to dozens of tax listings for material goods and supplies. And even that one tax-demand of captives isn't the province (Tepeacac) being told to supply their own people, but rather to supply captured soldiers taken from Tlaxcala, Huextozinco, Cholula etc: States the Aztec were enemies with, IE an indirect demand to help besiege those states. (That said, civilians were often given as slaves, in addition to soldiers captured in the battle, as part of offer by a state when it surrendered after losing to an invasion: It's just regular payments of captives as annual taxes after that point was rare) Okay, so what IS the deal with taking captives? It was certainly a common and important part of warfare, but, but at least for the Aztec, the consensus is now that it was secondary to actual tactical military objectives and goals. After all, these were organized armies with proper unit divisions and ranks, armor (AlthistoryHub shows Aztec soldiers wearing Jaguar pelts like cave men, when they had padded gambeson armor: it's just the warsuits/tunics worn over the gambeson had patterns, such as jaguar spots, made from a mosaic of iridesecent feathers), bespoke weapons (swords/macuahuitl, different kinds of clubs, maces, axes, spears, glaives, pikes, bows, atlatl, slings etc) and we have records of complex tactics like pincer formations, feigned retreats, ambushes, and so on Captive taking seems to mostly happen after enemy lines break: you probably wouldn't have seen soldiers going out of their way to avoid killing during the middle of a close battle. The fact that captive taking was so important to rank advancement itself betrays that it was a rare/impressive feat, rather than it being the norm instead of killing an enemy, especially since different kings gave decrees saying from then on captured soldiers from X or Y state would grant extra or no rank promotions, based on if they were perceived to be formidable or weak (or how important a military target/threat they were) Finally, Flower Wars: As I alluded to before, not all wars were Flower wars. In fact, they seem to not even be that particularly common. There is come contradictory info on this, but the Mexica seemingly only regularly employed them against Tlaxcala, Huextozinco, etc in an offensive capacity. They were sometimes done between the Mexica and existing subjects, but these were mutually agreed on in special circumstances like to cement alliances (though this fact allegedly was kept secret from commoners, so they wouldn't know their lives were used for pageantry). Next, these were not just ritual conflicts about getting captives (in fact I've seen some assertions that they did involve killing in battle too, or that captives were released, etc), but also had pragmatic military utility Against enemy states, Flower Wars were a way to dip your toes into the water with lower intensity warfare, which could then escalate into full normal warfare, or could be called off. EX the wars with Chalco gradually evolved from Flower Wars to become increasingly pragmatic and serious over time. Their smaller scale also meant they could be waged year round (unlike normal wars) and/or for many years straight, as a sort of extended siege to wear enemy states down (Traditional siege warfare wan't common in Mesoamerica, tho this is debated a bit). Flower Wars also kept soldiers trained and fit when they might otherwise not have been in the field, and provided opportunities to collect captives, keeping soldiers invested in a military career as a result. Some researchers even believe the entire idea of Aztec flower wars against Tlaxcala etc was just revisionism by Aztec sources to justify when they could never conquer the state(s)! There's more I could say, and admittedly, again, there's some contradictrary information about Flower Wars and sieges/garrisons. There's also the fact that "Aztec" is a pretty imprecise term: Since each subject was mostly indepedent, they had their own different practices. And, again, captive taking WAS still important and there WERE ritual elements to Mesoamerican warfare. To play devil's advocate, some researchers have argued that the literature has overcorrected, and now the ritual elements are downplayed too much instead of being overemphasized as they used to be. But AltHistoryHub is certainly overemphasizing it, as even if ritualism was A aspect of Aztec militarism, certainly economics, tactics, and politics were too
I think you forget that Hitler didn't like Naval warfare that much, mostly because it sapped a lot of resources. He played it defensively in the Atlantic, mostly just going after American supply ships.
I don't even know what you're talking about, he was like a kid in a candy store when it came to developing Plan Z. He personally approved the construction of 10 Battleships, 3 Battlecruisers, 15 Pocket Battleships, 40 cruisers, 4 Aircraft Carriers and 68 Destroyers.
@@Edax_Royeaux Doesn't change how pathetic Germany's Navy was in WW2. By the time the US got involved in 1941, the Royal Navy alone had already sent 90% of the Kriegsmarine's surface fleet to the bottom of the Atlantic. Now imagine if the Kriegsmarine went up against the US Navy. So even if Germany defeated Great Britain, it wouldn't even be able to reach the US East Coast. The US Navy was already slapping around the Japanese navy, which was one of the most powerful in the world at the time and was Far more powerful than Germany's, less than a year after it got into the war. What chance did the Kriegsmarine have? Heck, even the Italian Navy performed better and lasted longer than Germany's. (As a side note: For all the jokes about Italy in WW2, people don't realize that the Regia Marina was an actual menace)
@@emperorkane317 Just because the Kriegsmarine was pathetic, does not mean Hitler didn't like naval warfare. He wanted a giant fleet and he ordered a giant fleet and he was quite involved with designing this giant fleet that was meant to be ready by 1948. He even assured Admiral Raeder that war would not come until 1948 so he could get his grand fleet.
Old Britainia explained it best...italy was never friends with Austria Hungary around WW1 and waiting for the reason to stab them in the back. I think that the italians changing face was predictable as well as inevitable. They wanted the destruction of Austria hungary
Both Oppenheimer and Einstein both said later in life that they regretted helping the US develop nuclear weapons and that if they had known how far Germany was from making nukes they wouldn't have brought their work to the US.
I'm going to comment on three of these scenarios 1: Harald Haldrada was after York, not London he was reclaiming the Danelaw not England as a whole because it is where he had local support for his invasion. If he wins at Stamford Bridge he then marches and takes York ,so William gets almost a free pass in October landing at Pevensey and marching on London. England splits back again in to the Danelaw and the now Norman duchies of Wessex, Kent and Mercia. You could then argue that the "Historical" northern suppression under William then happens as an "invasion of the North" and we get a pitched battle somewhere on the great north road near York, with two formidable armies; the Danelaw aligned with vikings from Dublin fighting and probably a contingent of Anglo-Saxon rebels under Edgar Atheling ,against the new Anglo-Norman army, in I estimate about 1068/9 - It would be an interesting what if battle to war-game anyway. So History would repeat itself as it so often does.....as it is similar to the events when Aethelstan invaded the north and fought the Battle of Brunanburh in 937 (which we have as yet no idea where this battle happened but the archaeologists are still actively looking), when the Anglo-Saxons plan started under Alfred, is completed by his grandson and is original creation of the English kingdom happens. 2. ACW with British involvement- Every-time the US has invaded Canada it gets its butt kicked back South and 50% of the time the White house gets set on fire! its just not a good idea. On the whole Canadians are really nice people who like to stay nice as much as possible with you....... unless you declare war with them; then they turn into your worse nightmare and fight you in ways that that are "really unpleasant" (today some of these "methods" are considered to be war-crimes!). So its "like never get involved in a land war in SE asia", or "Never fight on 2 fronts simultaneously"...."Don't invade Canada it really is not worth the pain that will happen to you". 3. Germany and the A bomb- this was not happening anytime soon under the man with the mustache- in reality the massive inefficiency of the German state, they could never centralised their efforts under one group, disparate groups with small bits of research being ultimately duplicated multiple times. So the closest the Germans got was the "Reich's post office" (no not joking on this one) building a nuclear reactor which could have made small amounts of fissile U235 and Pu239 and releases some energy. but only about 1/100th of the amount to build a viable weapon. Even if all the competing factions in Germany get anywhere by cooperation is still cant match the Manhattan Project in its resources, and they still had to build an intercontinental delivery system which could get across the Atlantic (probably a big missile).
2 - The USA of the mid-19th century was different to the USA of the Revolution or War of 1812. Because something happened before doesn't mean it should happen again. The USA had grown in industrial might, and they might possibly couldhave invade Canada and annexed territories. Britain would have had to withdraw troops from India and Africa, thus curtailing colonial expansions there. There is no way Britain at that point could have entered DC and burtn the white house. Had there been a war under President Harrison which was possible, Britain would have lost and possibly lost some Caribbean colonies too. Maybe most of Ontario and Quebec would be American from that point.
It's important to note that the standard Cody is using to judge the realism of a scenario is how many point of divergences (PoD's) are necessary for that scenario to occur. So, for example, while one might argue that, had Rome remained a powerful empire for a few centuries longer than it did, it could have industrialized, the sheer number of PoD's required for that to happen is simply not realistic. It needs to be understood that the fall of the Romans was an extremely multifaceted event in history. There wasn't just one thing, or even a small set of things, that doomed Rome to fail. There were hundreds of factors going against the Romans, and a large number of them were capable of triggering Rome's fall in one way or another. As a result, one would need a large number of PoD's to prevent Rome from falling long enough for them to industralize. I think analyzing the value of alternate history scenarios in this way is incredibly helpful for understanding history, because oftentimes the unrealistic scenarios are the ones that shape popular views of history. I think there are at least some people out there who think that Man in the High Castle is a plausible scenario and that such a conclusion has shaped their view of history and, consequently, modern war and politics today. I'm sure the common claim that "America would not be a free country today if the Axis won WW2," is heavily premised on the fact that the Axis would have occupied the American heartland if they won. These ideas about history reinforce political beliefs in politics today, such as claims that it is *absolutely necessary* that America remains the strongest military power in the world. If I was an isolationist in America, I could use these misconceptions about history and skewer some arguments for American interventionism. Beliefs about the necessity of nuclear weapons today are certainly influenced by false ideas about how much the atomic bombings motivated Japan's surrender. Such ideas are reinforced by unrealistic alternate history scenarios.
Funny thing about Roman industrialization, their counterparts the Han Chinese was the closest to achieving it without realizing it. They were already exporting steel to Rome as a product aside from other Silk Road goods. Chinese irons and steel were cheap in relative to Romans because the Chinese made theirs through the use of blast furnace for cast-iron manufacturing. They figured out that it is quicker and cheaper to mass produce goods, especially agricultural tools for plowing, through continuously-fed furnace. Now the Romans did have blast-furnace as well but they were more ‘domestic’ market than the Hans were. They just couldn’t figure out how the economy of scale works.
>They just couldn’t figure out how the economy of scale works. Eh, disagree. For example archeologists excavated multi-ton glass slabs which supposedly were then shipped across the Mediterrain and transformed into finished products, so Romans could do stuff at scale when they knew what they were doing. Romans more likely couldn't figure out the connection between higher temperature and better steel.
Scientists unearthed at one point remains of ~73 Roman kilns at a single spot, and some of the largest kilns known were meters high as a result Romans made so much pottery they could: A) literally single use it B) create a hill (Monte Testaceo) just from pottery used to ship oil to Rome. Romans absolutely knew how to scale things when they understood what they were doing.
30:45 The Japanese coup attempt was very minimal in scope and didn’t have massive government or military backing. Japan was trying to find a way out of the war and had been for weeks by that point.
It only took 11 naval officers to take out Prime Minister Inukai and completely warp the Japanese government to be dismissive of democracy and of the rule of law. It sparked off the February 26 incident that took out a further 2 former Prime Minsters along with several leading members of the government, even though the coup d'état ultimately failed, it still had an inescapable effect on the Japanese government, leading to more military control.
It may have been even "weaker" than that. One explanation was that the coup attempt that night was really a sort of kabuki dance, meant from the outset to fail (including by its own leaders), and even that it was actually instigated BY the imperial family, rather than against it. The purpose being to distance the Emperor from "the militarists" in Western eyes, and increase the chances that the imperial regime would endure through the Occupation. From that perspective, perhaps one could characterize the attempt as "successful". I don't know if I accept this interpretation, but I don't wholly dismiss it either.
And yet Japan actually got what they really wanted (or at least what the palace & government wanted): the throne survived the occupation and Japan still has an Emperor today. It's hard to avoid mention of the opposite counterfactual scenario than the one discussed in the video: that the Pacific War could have ended sooner than it actually did. Not only without the A-bombs, but perhaps also without such horrific battles as Okinawa and Iwo Jima, IF the Allies had bent a little on "unconditional" regarding the imperial institution...which they wound up doing anyway.
@cragnamorra keeping the Emperor wad a last resort for Japan. Before Potsdam they also wanted to keep their army, keep the remaining territories they held & conduct their own war crimes trials.
@@cragnamorra Japan only got what they wanted with the Emperor was because of personal actions of MacArthur, the majority of the UK and US public wanted the Emperor punished.
"slightly softer" a pair of shoes they wanted to keep the colonies and "process war criminals" (=self absolution) on their own and 0 occupation these were simply OUTRAGEOUS and negotiators acted on their own also the head of the tenno was never under question
I have to side with Cody on the last one, it was never going to happen in a million years. Even ignoring all the factors that need to play out in the favor of the Axis for them to beat the British and Soviets, there still are so many factors to consider, it really is hard to grasp. Most of all, I don't think many people realize how painstakingly difficult amphibious invasions are. Just look at D-day. The allies literally had all the advantages they could dream off, years of prep time, a well secure and unsinkable base of operation in Britain, total air superiority, most of the enemies ground troops being hold down far away in the east, successfully tricked the opponent into thinking that they would attack in Calais. Yet they still had to endure some absolute horrendous casualties and fights to establish a beach head in Normandy. The Nazis didn't even attempt Operation Sealion, being well aware that it would be literal suicide. There have been countless simulated war games with all the factors being firm in Germany's favor, they all ended in disaster for them. The gist is that trying to invade the U.S. by sea would be an incredible, difficult endeavor. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. The German surface fleet was a joke, and U-boats don't do much for Naval Invasion aside from attacking coastal targets. The Japanese had a more formidable fleet, but it got blown to pieces at Midway and Leyte Gulf. Of course, we can assume that the U.S. never actively takes part in the war and sticks to isolationism, but even then it would take years to even build a fleet capable to attempt a landing force. Both side of the US coast are littered with mountains and desserts, with the big industrial centers being well within the continent. Every U.S. Citizen is would be armed to the teeth. And even using Canada or Mexico as a landing base requires endless colones of supplies, which are easily exploitable from a defensive land based position. And Canada and Mexico likely would risk a preventive counterstrike of the US. Finally, I just don't see Nazi Germany or Japan to have the logistics and sheer manpower to both hold on to their occupied territories and launch a full scale land invasion towards the U.S. Britain, the Soviets and China may all be defeated temporarily and forced to sign truces. But they would have absolutely jumped at the Germans/Japanese the moment they would turn their attention elsewhere and. Britain still had Canada, India, New Zealand, Australia and more of the Commonwealth to bounce back from. And the rest of the world as well as general evolutions, be it militarily or not, never really stand still. By the mid 50es to 60es, the U.S. would have like 20-30 Super Carrier Groups with multipurpose jet aircraft and long range high altitude bombes capable of launching nukes pretty much anywhere in the world. The invasion forces would have been sunk to the bottom of the Atlantic/Pacific, and subsequently Berlin/Tokyo turned into a nuclear wasteland, before they ever set a foot on American soil.
Potential History did a really good video about why Japan surrendered and maybe you could do a reaction to that as why Japan surrendered is such a debated topic and there are many misconceptions about it.
A couple things I would like to mention about the Harold H. scenario. I know historians have mapped out what the weather was probably like during the year 1066 by reading what accounts we have and knowing weather patterns today. And the weather that was holding William back in Normandy was speeding Harold H. to England. So if William got the winds he needed to land in England first, it might have delayed Harold H. even longer and gave Harold G. the chance to recoup. Also, while the northern part of England had a lot of people of Danish decent, the south was majority Saxon German and probably have resisted Harold H. as much as they resisted William.
@@Trecesolotienesdos I said northern England had a lot of Danish/Norse decent. It was southern England that was mostly Anglo Saxon and the Saxons came from Germany.
@@genovayork2468 Today it means English, but not long after the year 400 A.D., England was invaded and settled by the Saxons (German), and they became the Anglo-Saxons.
Regarding the Roman industrialization idea, I think the primary spark for such a thing would be the printing press making reading, writing, scientific, and philosophical efforts more possible and widespread. Of course, the "printing press" here involves multiple inventions - particularly inexpensive paper and ink. But if that was somehow put into existence in the 1st century, we could potentially see a lot of the scientific and enlightenment revolutions happening during the age of the Roman Empire and see the industrial age come much sooner.
Regarding Harald Hardrada's chances of conquering England:. 1. He was King of Norway not the King of the Danes who had (under Canute) had been the King of England only 30 years before. The Godwinsons (Harold of Wessex family) had actually served Canute before his line died out and Edward the Confessor regained the throne. When Harald (and Harold's brother Torstig) arrived in the north they were resisted by Edwin, Earl of Mercia, and his brother Morcar, Earl of Northumbria, at the Battle of Fulford, outside York. Following this victory they received the surrender of York. Having briefly occupied the city and taken hostages and supplies from the city they returned towards their ships. 2.Harald had a finite army. The Norwegians were NOT welcomed by the Anglo Saxons and English Danes and he and Torstig did not gain any significant reinforcements from the local populace. This means that even if Harald defeated and killed Harold at Stamford Bridge the Norwegian army would have been battered and further weakened. Harold reinforced his army as he marched south to confront William. Harald wouldn't have had that reinforcement. So his army, after two battles won, would still have taken casualties which he could not replensih quickly. 3. Marching south to fight William. Consider he would be marching through hostile territory the whole way (remember he is Norwegian not a Dane, his army is going to suffer further attrition and require the allocation of garrisons along his route to keep his supply line back to his boats in Yorkshire secure. His army (which was around 9000 strong would be rather small by the time it reached southern England to face Williams 15,000. In fact the English would likely have resisted or at least not assisted any advance made by the Norwegians. I think this is why Harald retreated after beating the Northern Earls. He was a long way from his base (Norway) and all he could do once he realised that Torstig had lied about the support he claimed would welcome his arrival, was pull back towards his original base and maybe even reboard his ships and simply raid coastal towns. Harold stopped this by force marching north before Harald had decided his next move. 4. Battle joined: Regarding the Norwegians vs the Normans in battle yes the situation is sort of similar to the one Harold faced against William (minus the numbers the Saxons could deploy).. An infantry based army vs an army with a large cavalry base supported by infantry armed, in part, with archers is always interesting but the initiative is always with the cavalry heavy army and if, like William, you know how to use that advantage, the infantry based army is in trouble. . I do not doubt that the Norwegians would have held as well as the Saxons against the Norman cavalry charges but the Norwegians did not have many archers so Harald could not reply effectively against the Norman archers supplemented by the Breton, javelin armed, cavalry bombarding the Norwegian Shield Wall any more than King Harold Godwinson, and the Norwegian would have a lot less men. Attrition by fire would have weakened the Shield Wall until a cavalry charge could break it up and once broken there was nothing left but the slaughter. So I agree with him, Harald of Norway had no chance on doing more than having a good old fashioned raid before buggering off home.
Hey Chris, as someone who has watch more of Cody's videos. It might help to know that he has really leaned into keeping motivations, and actions of people, nations etc. To be logically consistent to his own interpretation of said actions and motivations. An example of this is his video on Alexander Hamilton becoming president. He largely rules out Hamilton running for Pres. due to his assessment of Hamilton's lack of a presidential run IRL, yet transposes the same actions over to another timeline. And has him puppteering another person, vs just simply making him run. It is a slightly more restricted what if ism when he approaches his videos.
A little insight from a Spaniard. Most of the national army sided with Franco while the Republicans were in disarray. If you want more details, George Orwell has this amazing book (Homage to Catalonia) where he talks about his experience volunteering to fight among the Communist faction in 1936-37. The moment he enlisted, he was promoted to Corporal since almost all of his companions were teenagers. The guns they were provided with were antique and of very poor quality. The Condor Legion was crucial, yes, and the Allies not intervening as well, but it looked pretty bad from the very start for the Republicans.
Because these came from his discord, they are very clearly for the alt history community, and addressing things that are often referenced. He’s not saying they are impossible, he’s saying they are less likely than many in the community like to think they are.
Hating a little too much on this dude. Several of his points were entirely valid. Man in the High Castle for example, his point is that it wasn’t a realistic alternate history. You can write alternate history based on realistic scenarios, or you can make it entirely fictional. That was his point.
@VloggingThroughHistory first, i love your channel, keep being who you are, Second, i think the reason you dissagreed with many of these is (and many other people have said this already) but you can AltHistory are looking at Alt History from Different perspectives. Still, love your stuff, your incredible!
22:57 On top of that, America was no longer its 1776 and 1812 self. Within 6 months of the Proclaimation going into effect, Lincoln had finally found a team of generals that could defeat the Confederacy: Meade, Grant, and Sherman. To these would be added generals like George Thomas, Phillip Sheriden, and as you've pointed out Ambrose Burnside who (despite Burnside's good plan at Fredericksberg going down to miscommunication) were highly competent. Canada would not have been a difficult target for the large, veteran armies that won at Gettysberg and Vicksburg commanded by good generals like the ones that won those battles. None of this would have escaped the notice of Britain.
The Axis would never have considered the idea of invading the US mainland during the WWII time period. They simply did not have the naval or logistical reach for it. There was no scenario that the Germans could even pull off Sealion, much less crossing the Atlantic in force. And while Japan had a larger and more capable navy than Germany, they were designed to secure the island chains around them, and didn’t have the range to even reach Hawaii. They only pulled off Pearl Harbor because they pushed their carriers to the very extremes of their operational range. Perhaps things could be different in an Axis v Allies Cold War, but an actual invasion of the US itself in the ‘40s or even ‘50s was never in the cards.
You really don't get the point of his video. He has talked about this before (when talking about WW2), at what point are you requiring so many divergences that your subject no longer resembles what you started with. Alexander the Great was on Champaign for Glory, not to rule. There was little glory to be won fighting in Italy, to change Alexander enough that he is more interested in squashing small regional powers to take their lands rather than defeating Great Powers makes him a completely different character. Same with Rome industrializing. You have to add so many more things to their culture as well as probably centuries of time before they can industrialize, are they even the Roman Empire at that point? We call the Eastern Roman Empire something different (Byzantium) because it has enough fundamental differences that we need to clarify it, and they are far closer to the Roman Empire than a prospective Rome that could industrialize.
I think from a mental framing perspective, the way Cody went about this and the way he tends to go about his alternate history videos is picking a POD and then sticking with "reasonable" fallout or changes from there. Each of the ones he does are certainly not always one change but usually kept minimal. Some of the scenarios in this video require a whole cascade of changes, many of which are quite large, to work out. I think that's where he's getting for some of these when he says there's no way. All that said, I also disagree with him on some of these, at least with his characterizations if not his entire premise. Still love the channel and the video though. There are no completely "correct" answers with alternate history after all, we all get our own opinions.
The two big reasons America couldn't be successfully invaded in World War II are the Atlantic and the Pacific. Even with all of America's industrial and sealift capabilities, those two factors greatly affected its ability to wage overseas war and how it waged it. A POD that impacted US intervention outside the Americas to the extent that the Axis win is plausible. One that led to the conquest of the US is not.
About Alexander going west to Rome, he'd have a very hard time convincing people that it was a worthy target, while his army was built to take on Persia (the big threat for the last 150-200 years). While in our timeline, Rome only appeared on the greek radar after threatening some greek cities in southern Italy. Still, it didn't draw the ire of Macedonia, but of the smaller Epirus, Pyrrhus seeing an opportunity to raise his own power then be stronger against Macedonia, so it was taking on Rome or no one else. All that was after Alexander. There wouldn't be any reason for Alexander to strike an italian backwater instead of Persia.
Hey man I found your channel a few weeks ago and have been hooked! History is one of my favorite subjects and channels like yours are the reason why. Thanks!
The Sunset Invasion is a scenario in Europa Universalis IV that plays under the idea that american civilizations had (by magic and alien intervention) westernized before the game starts, so they are in equal footing to the great european powers technologicaly. The thing about that scenario in real life lacks a crucial component (I know, people tend to go with the lack of tech and knowledge to dismiss it, but it's simpler): The "NEED". Europe needed to reach India and Asia for their products, and that's what makes the scenario impossible. No one embarks on a costly and dangerous trip for the giggles. Even the Vikings sailed towards England because they knew there were lands to pillage there. Even if the Aztecs, Mayas or Incas had the tech, they had no reason to go exploring an ocean away, while they didn't even explored the rest of the continent, let alone go on a conquest spree when there was plenty more to conquest at home (remember, maps lie. South America alone has 70% more surface than all of Europe, and it's even bigger than Russia).
7:55 Yes he said drought. You picked it up VTH because you've likely read a beer menu in an English style pub where you were looking at what was on tap. Jolly good my good man!
I think the best alternate history timelines are ones with a singular point of divergence. For example the King of England (George V) defies parliament and allows Nicholas II asylum in England. Maybe they broker a deal with the US or Canada to get him out of Europe. Through bargaining and appealing to "the greater good" the passage HE HAS WAGED CRUEL WAR was never removed from the declaration of independence and the now former slaves where armed to help fight the British. Spain takes full responsibility and apologizes/pays the US for the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor. Booth is stopped from Killing Lincoln. He still shoots Lincoln but he is tackled and only shoots him in the shoulder/arm maiming the president instead of killing him. Garfield's doctors (fearing the worst) leave the bullet in him and leave him be. Teddy Roosevelt drops out of the race and supports Taft against Wilson after he is shot. After he gives his speech he then gets treatment for the wound and instead of continuing on says that the "bull moose" is better off helping Taft and supports Taft's bid for reelection vs Woodrow Wilson. The Germans don't sink the Lusitania. They capture and board the vessel allowing the civilians to leave or be held as POWs. The Treaty of Versailles is far more lenient and is based on Wilson's 14 points.
@@genovayork2468Versailles was harsh enough to wind up the Germans (and play into the reactionary and conservatives' victim complexes) but not harsh enough to actually have an effect on them. Either making it harsher or nicer could've worked. Or, even, actually enforcing it after a certain point.
You hit the nail squarely on the head several times, with your critiques. A lot of alternate historians are obsessed with "realism" because they are focused very heavily on great man and scientific theories of history... which is ironic because they also tend to actively dismiss or disparage those theories and rightly so. They also tend to be very stuck in the mindset of military history equals general history, so they tend to have blind spots or partial blind spots with regards to diplomacy, trade, science and technology, and espionage.
28:56 Don't forget Oppenheimer was just the chief of this WORLD project. If he dies, he can be replaced. They are plenty of scientits coming from Europe who worked on this project and were at least as competent as Oppenheimer.
If the war had gone differently, and UK loses... then the germans and the japaneses can attack the USA from Canada. He just completely forgot that. They can even launch a sea offensive from the Carribeans
If you look at sources from the Japanese government around the end of the war there was actually a lot of talk of maybe using the Soviets as a mediator or possibly even challenge the West after the war in Europe ended, although those who did believe they could get the West-Soviet Alliance to break apart were more or less living in a fantasy world at that point in time. You also have to remember the ingrained culture in Japan at the time, the Emperor was seen as a living god, if he wanted the country to surrender no one would dare challenge that, even if they wanted to. Those who committed the coup were officers in the military, and were so radical in their beliefs that they probably would have killed the Emperor. Challenging the Emperor's decision was seen as dishonorable in Japanese society at the time, which is why the coup was swiftly put down. It's an interesting part in Japanese history that is sometimes overlooked.
Chris seems awfully aggressive during the whole reaction. The whole "isn't that what your whole channel is about?" almost sounds like a personal attack
Yeah. Honestly I think AHH was a little misleading when he said some of these were impossible, mainly because they didn't happen irl. Like that's the point of alternate history dude. A good portion of these were plausible if a few events changed. On the other hand VTH thinking that Japan was willing to keep fighting in 1945 and Italy was on friendly terms with Austria-Hungary in 1914 proves he's not nearly the expert he claims he is.
@@mudnarchist The thing is - alternate history is about plausible scenarios. Its really easy to justify whatever you want (Point of fact I once justified Venice becoming leading power of split Italy by making Napoleon not invade Russia). Since this is the case most "serious" alternate history expect scenarios that have very plausible events that could have went either way flipping around. Once you start to set things up to justify the change you want to make you enter a spiral. First thing is that you are creating very implausible scenario and the much larger issue is that any change you make has usually much bigger impact than expected and it gets worse once they start to be socio-economic. Thats why these are bad scenarios of alternate history.
I've heard i think stories from japanese people during ww2 that said the nukes didn't really change their minds on the war because they were already being bombed to hell by regular american raids directed by Lemay. On the other hand, the russians joining the war had a much bigger impact because they had been anxious and afraid for months that it would happen. We know now that nukes are way worse than regular bombs, but in the moment of the war, I don't think the nukes had that much of an impact. Hell, if the nukes were that scary, Japan prob would've surrendered before it was dropped. Also we know now that america dropping the bombs was more of a show of force to the soviets for what would happen after the war.
The law of Anime is that the more exotic your character is, the more powerful he or she is; especially if they're on their own. So a jaguar warrior could probably slay like 5 conquistadors, at once, if he steps into europe. And you can bet he'll make it to europe, because every anime has a twist! However, if he's still in the americas, he's surrounded by others like him, so he's a goner.
The way alternate history goes nowadays is that the divergence points should be small in number. The number of divergence points and the associated requirements are mostly what he is complaining about.
Hi toaster here, I kind of agree that the Italy joining the Central Powers portion was partially incorrect. in my initial essay I focused more on the reliance on trade with the Allied powers, and how joining the Central Powers would throw the nation into an economic shock due to the complete and utter reliance on allied Imports Italy was, and not the whole Italia Irredenta portion, in fact I believe (this was awhile ago) I included a segment discussing the possibility of Austria offering to concede more lands to Italy in order for their intervention (however I also believe this is impossible due to extreme ethnic tensions in the empire at the time, obviously). The original idea was why Italy would never join the Central powers, not why Italy joining the Central Powers wouldn't win Germany the war, as in many battles even a slight diversion of troops could have lead to more German victories, and Italy fighting France would cause a serious diversion of Entente troops and free millions of Austrian soldiers. Hope this clears up any confusion, and I'd love a critique of this take as well. happy to send over the essay if you'd like to read it. Also fun thing, Germany's involvement in the Spanish Civil war was mild, however Italy's was extensive, so should Italy pull their support, I definitely think the republicans could have won the war. (but that's not my essay and not my area of expertise)
A more plausible point of departure for English history would be Knut, King Canute, having better luck with his sons, and keeping England and Scandinavia together as one society.
So, there is actually proof of this. There's a great video by Shaun who went into the timeline for the surrender of Japan. They truly thought the Russians would not invade them. The Japanese ambassador repeatedly wrote, as he was the one on the ground back home that the Russians had no desire to work with them. But, the same council whom he was in contact with said outright "keep pushing for him to help negotiate a surrender" Some members of the Japanese high council were so convinced of their own beliefs about the world new info was ignored. Full delusion like Nazi Germany.
The Japanese media was highly censored. Even the widely read Mein Kampf had been censored to remove Hitler's racism against Asians, leading to a distorted view on Nazi Germany amongst Japanese zealots.
Not only would Italy staying with the Central Powers be a plausible outcome for a Central Powers victory, Italy joining no matter what changes the outcome a whole lot no matter who's side. We've seen the damage Italy joining the Entente did in our timeline, but If Austro-Hungary offers Italy the land they wanted and said, "We'll give you what you want so long as you remain Neutral." unless the Entente can come up with a better offer, Italy will take the deal and stay neutral denying the Entente another front and allowing the Central Powers more resources they can use on the other European fronts. If Austro-Hungary offered the land Italy wanted from them and offered land from France such as Corsica, Savoy, & Niece, saying, "It's all yours if you join us." obviously they'd have to think about it, but by accepting it, Italy screws over the Entente because of two reasons; One, that's more ocean for their sea vessels to manage and if they tried to blockade at the passage between Gibraltar and NEUTAL Spanish Morrocco they could wind up getting Spain involved on the side of the Central Powers if things escalated from there. Two, that's another front for France & Britain to manage which could spread their resources thinner than it was already at that point. If the Ottoman Empire still joins on the side of the Central Powers too that's further resources, they'll have to spread even thinner.
I was hoping you would react to this one. Great analysis as usual, Chris. I think the intent of the video was to critically evaluate popular alternate scenarios that require too many leaps in logic to be somewhat realistic. On the Rome inventing steam engines point, your scenario's pre-requisite was a Rome that survived hundreds of years longer than it did. In that case, it is absolutely realistic to expect them to invent steam power. Cody's point, though, didn't give Rome that sort of time; even if the empire survived longer than it did, it still may not have been enough to unlock steam power. You were both correct, but your parameters were different. I'm with you 100% about the Operation Downfall point, though. It's easy to forget that, even though Japan was clearly on the terminal defensive, casualties were going up as the Allies got closer to the home islands. Battles were becoming more desperate & scrappy, resulting in ever-climbing civilian death tolls. Japanese authorities were teaching children how to make spears out of bamboo shafts, and broadcasting slogans about 100 million souls dying for Japan. "But they were defeated! They were on their last legs!" Brother, Japan was defeated by January of 1944. You could argue Japan was defeated by June 7, 1942. Heck, you could even argue Japan's defeat was sealed by dusk December 7, 1941! That's how little a chance they had in a long term war, and they knew it, too. Even a novice officer could tell in 1945 that Japan's situation in the Pacific had become completely untenable. They dragged the war out far beyond any possible hope of receiving any reasonable consolation for their efforts, let alone victory. Japan was already defeated, but it didn't matter.
I would also add that the Japanese had kept the bulk of their Kamikazes in reserve to defend the home islands, which is why Kamikaze pilots had far better survivability rates than German U-Boat crews, this doesn't strike me as a sign Japan preparing to unconditionally surrender. They were putting serious effort towards a grueling and desperate fight on the home islands.
@@Edax_Royeaux Another very good point. And none of this is to imply that the Japanese people were stupid. They were just victims of the IJA's war tactics. From the beginning the IJA sought to fight a "war without mercy", taking few prisoners, treating the ones they had brutally, and fighting to the last man. They did this to disincentivize their own troops from giving up. The old "if we are this cruel to the prisoners we take, how cruel do you think the Allies will treat you?" sort of tactic. And for the Kamikaze pilots, the gov't basically said to these bright young men, "If you don't volunteer for this, we will force your friends to do it." The Japanese people were not blindly fighting a war they thought they could win. They were embracing the doom that was closing in on them. To Japan, losing didn't mean giving up their land claims in the Pacific; losing meant apocalypse.
35:45 true! BUT, do keep in mind that long before 41, when the nazis were still at their peak, hitler was beyond hesitant to invade britain by sea. A significantly smaller and closer nation. Operation sea lion was shelved because it was deemed too costly, and blitzkrieg could not be utilized with boat style landings
32:46 To be alternate history, it has be similar enough to not just be a separate universe, all the events leading up to it had to be pretty similar but the events that happened changed to a few small but impactful changes.
Chris with alternate history you have to make it sorta realistic like if we have a scenario of nazi winning ww2 you gonna have change so much about them that they won’t even be Nazi anymore Alexander wouldn’t be him if he invaded Rome and likewise Rome wouldn’t be Rome if they’re industrial
Regarding the Japanese surrender. Akira Kurisawa in his biography talked about getting married in preparation for the Emperors order for mass suicide to avoid the shame of occupation. So without the bombs their might not have been any Japan left.
There's a Japanese light novel series called Modern Villainess built around an alternate history scenario where Japan waits a few more weeks before surrendering to the US...not long enough for Operation Downfall to kick in, but long enough for the Soviets to conquer Hokkaido and set up a Communist puppet state in Hokkaido + Sakhalin. This Communist regime falls apart at the end of the Cold War and gets reabsorbed into Japan proper just like East Germany got absorbed by the West. The novels really get into the weeds of Japanese economic history in the 1990s and 2000s.
Ciao Chris, ti devo dire la verità da tuo fan che non c’è possibilità che il governo italiano sarebbe mai entrato in guerra a fianco degli imperi centrali. semplicemente se vai a leggere i trattati diplomatici e discussioni all’interno del governo e del parlamento italiano tra re Vittorio Emanuele III, Giolitti e alti partecipanti nessuno ha mai considerato effettivamente discendere in guerra contro gli inglesi e i francesi e c’è sempre stata la possibilità di rimanere neutrali ma mai di entrare in guerra, mai
what if you stay neutral and the central powers are about to win, wouldnt your country jump in a few month before the entante falls to secure some land
I'm just going to talk about the last one. Yes you could say the United States was a ocean away in the same sense that Germany and Japan were an ocean away and his reasons why they never really could threaten the US with invasion. The problem with your reaction on that was the US proved it could make amphibious landings in D-Day and other invasions. The US was a definite threat to Japan to invade them by sea. I think that was the point to get Stalin to invade from Manchuria to force Japan to fight on multiple fronts.
Look up how Texacco supplied Franco's rebel army with petroleum products and Ford supplied motor vehicles. Without fuel, the Condor Legion doesn't fly. Without trucks, troops move much more slowly. Having Roosevelt crack down is easy to picture.
With Alternate History, one needs to know the situation well enough to appreciate how changing the outcome could be possible. If you do not know what Woodrow Wilson did on foreign policy, understanding just how he was an idiot will be missed.
There are two Alternate History Hub videos that I would recommend reaction to: One is of Napoleon being able to invade the United Kingdom and the other is of Alexander Hamilton becoming President of the United States.
I'll add that any scenario involving an invasion of the United States taking place in the past 200 years is unrealistic for the reasons Cody mentioned. Germany and Japan were able to invade nearby countries (with Germany traveling by ground), but there would be no logical place for the Axis to stage an invasion like the Allies had with the UK unless they were also going to take Canada and/or Latin America.
Courtesy of the great war channel. Italy and Austria were negotiating. Austria was making concessions to keep Italy neutral. Italy made a counter offer to join their side in the war Austria declined it. Seriously the only thing that would need to change for that one to happen is Austria to not be a dumbass and accept it. Yeah they'd lose some more land than they were willing to, but they'd gain an entire new ally as well as helping Germany so much because France suddenly had a whole new land border to fight for. Italy would probably lose to a naval invasion similarly to ww2 but it might last long enough to make it worth it having them
0:22 I mean, personally, my interest in alternate history fueled my desire to understand normal history. Its so essential to have a firm grasp on what happened during and after the point of your divergence if you intend to tell a well grounded story that you end up becoming a semi-expert on key eras of history just for the sake of writing the tale. Its sort of like building a murder mystery- every piece you introduced in the story must be placed very carefully because your audience by its very nature will be scrutinizing every little detail.
another thing I like about alternate history is that its a reminder that our timeline was not pre-ordained or guaranteed. Some people seem to think that way. But outcomes can turn on the roll of a dice or the flap of a butterflywing.
11:42 Yeah no, that's definitely a valid point. Danelaw was a thing long enough for people to have grown up, had a family, die and have their children grow up to have families under Danish kings and lords. There's a good chance they might even be part-Dane themselves, lots of Danes and Anglo-Saxons were sure to have coupled back then.
Glad you did this video! I’m part of that discord server and it was so much fun taking part of this event (no, none of those scenarios are mine). I’ll send this to our admin so he can watch!
On #3 you also have to take into account that Harold Godwinson’s own brother was in the Viking army so if they were able to win at Stanford Bridge he might’ve been able to grease the wheels if you will, to secure the north pretty quickly. While William probably would’ve taken the south before Hardrada was ready to move on him it would’ve taken a lot longer for either side to take over all of England.
A short list of my own remarks (in no particular order) that I'll try to keep brief (would love to go into more details if people reply): -The "Chinese discover America" scenario is based on the Ming Treasure Voyages, a real and colossal project undertaken in the early 1400s by the recently-installed Ming dynasty. They built these huge ships (made Colombus' boats look like canoes) and sent them out along trade routes as far as East Africa to collect tribute from states and peoples along the way. They were headed by Zheng He, Chinese Muslim eunuch, and they're honestly really cool, there's a great Kings and Generals video about them. -Your point about a reverse timeline between Stamford Bridge and Hastings happening is a good one. However, in keeping with Cody's scenario, I don't think Hardrada would have more luck in northern England than William did (wasn't easy settling for Normans either). Just because a part of the people there had Scandinavian descent doesn't mean they'd instantly bow down to a Norwegian king. -The Aztec Invasions scenario is based on a book by Laurent Binet called "Civilizations", in which alternate Norse voyages leave iron, steel and Old World diseases much earlier than in our timeline. As a result, the Incas this time have the technology and the immune system to go east.
Those treasure ships' size are probably grossly exaggerated. The histories claim they were between 440 and 538 feet in length, well the US built the six-masted schooner Wyoming in 1909 at a length of 450ft and discovered ships can't be built that long with wood because the extreme length will cause the hull flex, causing the long planks to twist and buckle in heavy seas and thereby allowing sea water to intrude into the hold. I've heard the counter-claim that the Chinese just know how to build blue water ships so much better than the Americans, but I don't really believe that.
I give guided tours of the Spanish civil war in Madrid. I generally defer to the historian Paul Preston who says that the only way the republicans had any chance of winning was that if Britain and France had lifted the non-intervention pact, which was a defacto embargo, banning the popular front from access to weapons and fuel markets, making them dependent entirely on what the Soviets sent, which wasn't enough. So they could have actually helped in this way without sending military aid and further stoking the tensions with Germany that they were afraid of. Yes, the factionalism in the popular front was a big killer for them, but in my opinion supply problems doomed them from the start.
I think the reason AHH is so dismissive of rome industrialising is because the scenario suggested by his discord server is the idea that rome as we know it could've industrialised, whereas stating the idea that rome could have evolved these ideas necessary for industrialisation if it had survived collapse both isn't what the scenario is arguing and would be a fundamentally different rome than what we had.
And if you make it too different, you aren't talking about Rome. I've made the same argument about Nazi Germany not invading the USSR. While possible, if it happens, you are talking about a history without Hitler. There is no way Hitler doesn't invade the Soviets due to his own beliefs. You change too much, you might as well invent a new power.
One of the most interesting what ifs for me is what if the sinking of the White Ship in 1120 never happens? Assuming William Adelin survives to inherit the throne from Henry and establishes his own dynastic line,then Stephen of Blois does not usurp the throne, there is no Anarchy, the Plantagenets never take over from Stephen. All subsequent English and British history takes a different path.
I don't know how common it is now, but a decade ago when cell phones were pretty much everywhere doctors were still carrying pagers. This was because pagers had much better signal coverage than cell phones. A doctor would get a page, then go to a spot with good signal strength to make his call.
History is dependent on the perceiver/researcher/student/teacher - that's several billion versions. I am literally watching history every night and if I type the "real story" (my experience) literally one or two folk MIGHT believe me. I experienced things, heard things, saw things as a child that people called me crazy for and a half century later became acceptable "truth". I'm 71 and my life has never been boring, not for a microsecond. L.A. is UAP Central. If you are in L.A. and want to wake up to a bit of Earth experience not included in your bubble then please contact me and I will "point with my finger" at something that you don't believe in. It's that simple.
Yes Soviet Union was bigger than the US, but they were also on a land border with Germany at the time of the invasion, they just needed to walk there. To get to the US you need thousands of ships making it harder. Plus, most people in the US were armed and many were even trained enough on the guns.
The reason I emphasize so hard that William is a Viking if not a French conqueror is because William was anything but English which many people think he was
another thing cody forgot with WW1 was that honor actually mattered, I could've definitely see italy at LEAST staying neutral if austria gave up Istria which would prevent another meat grinder front opening up, it was controversial even then that italy joined the allies and even then italy was still punished for it, their names were smeared and stained for ww1. A good reference on that is the fact that italy lost nearly half a million people on just that front alone, let alone the german's side which would free up an unmeasurable amount of manpower for other campaigns
The "Sunset Invasion" idea definitly came from a CK2 player. 😂
Sounds a lot like something the Altmer would pull off. (Elder Scrolls for those who don't know.)
is ck2 better than ck3? i have only played ck3 and i love it lol
@@junn805 Not necessarily, but being an older game with almost a decade of DLCs means it has a lot of content.
@@junn805 Depends on who you ask. The average state of gamers is "disgruntled" at best these days. aka they tend to hate newer stuff.
Bur as megaton said, it has more content, mainly Republics being playable too.
@@HDreamer As a CK3 player who tried CK2, the biggest sticking point for me was just how dated the game looks. I'm not even a stickler for graphics but it is VERY hard to go from CK3's fidelity down to CK2 which I could barely read.
Have to point out something Cody forgot in his analysis of a potential British intervention in the civil war. Cassius Clay, the American ambassador to Russia negotiated a deal with Emperor Alexander II that not only resulted in the US acquiring Alaska but an agreement that they would declare war on the UK and France if they officially recognized the Confederacy, with the Russian Navy even dispatched to the East and West coasts of the US with sealed orders that likely contained instructions to attack/blockade the Confederacy in the event Britain or France intervened.
It's hard to imagine it in today's post cold war political climate but there was a time where Russia and the US had really close ties to one another.
I don't know much about Russian naval power in the 1860s, so take this for what it's worth, but I doubt the British would've considered the Russian navy a major threat. Granted, they didn't want war in the first place, but if Russia declared war on France and Britain, I don't think the Russian navy would be able to take on one of them, let alone both. Cassius Clay was badass though, Fat Electrician did an awesome video about him
Personally I never rule Russia out if push comes to shove I don't believe they would trust anybody else in control of our bombs.
@@johnmcmanus2447 It would also depend on Spain and Who it would side with even Portugal
@@johnmcmanus2447 the main issue with confederate getting help from brittian is that they would first have to free the slave. at this period was active ant slavery so part of the issue they would have is changing there stance on the reason the war started in the first place.
@Marveryn oh yeah for sure, I was just commenting on the idea that Russia declaring war on two of the most powerful countries in Europe would be a threat. Britain had one of the most powerful navies in the world, while Russia would lose their entire Baltic fleet in about 40 years to the Japanese. The Confederates were never getting British or French help. Unless they freed the slaves, which would both collapse the southern economy and be a complete reversal of the whole reason for secession in the first place
I think you are taking Alternate History to mean "Assume any Hypothetical you want" and He is looking for scenarios with the minimal necessary divergance from our timeline.
In addition, he's looking for scenarios that he finds interesting. Alexander conquering Rome centuries before it rises only to probably lose it again after he dies just doesn't change much.
My guess is an alternate title for his video could be "10 videos I tried to make that didn't work out".
Yeah, it is about the most feasible and probable what-if scenarios.
I think it's more "Assume people only make decisions that they might actually make and the outcomes of any dispute still be realistic". An example would be the one about Italy siding with the Central Powers. Maybe they would've joined them if Austria had offered them Italian-speaking territories, but would the Austrians ever have been willing to offer them, given they don't know they're going to lose the war if they don't, and consider who was in charge in Austria and what their values were.
Yes, Alexander the Great could've decided to conquer Rome, but his father had promised the Greeks revenge against the Persians and that promise was a unifying force and so he'd never have chosen not to attack Persia.
Chris, read the letters between the Japanese Secretary of State and the minister to the Soviet Union. The Supreme council refused to believe the Soviets would declare war. It is literally insane to look at the translations, they sound like there were written by mad men. Which describes the half the Supreme Council well.
Reminds me of how Stalin refused to believe that Hitler would violate their Non-Aggression Pact, during the initial hours of the invasion. He genuinely believed that if there was an invasion it would have been in 1946.
Provide a PDF.
@@jakejerrison5181TH-cam doesn't like links in comments
@@jakejerrison5181I recommend Shaun’s video. TH-cam doesn’t like links but there are links to the documents in his video.
i wouldn't trust translations so willy nitty, speaking from personal expirience translations usually aren't quite perfect enough to really trust wether it was very unimportant or *very* important.
I would reccomend asking a proficiant bilingual native speaker to double check if the translations are good or not before using it as a source.
Chris, the nazis were never invading America due to lack of Naval capabilities. And invading the US is much more complex than invading Russia. 1.) you have to cross an ocean and perform a sea invasion. 2, there are multiple mountain ranges and different types of terrain compared to the European plain that pretty much makes up almost all of European Russia
“The Americans are a truly lucky people. Bordered to the north and south by weak neighbors and to the east and west by fish.”
-Otto von Bismarck
Yeah, considering some analysts and historians think Operation Sea Lion would've been such a disaster for the Nazis that it would've *shortened* the war, the logistical nightmare of invading and occupying the continental United States would've been incomprehensible.
@@graffitisamuraiyea I was gonna say, if they failed even beating the British Air Force and didn't have a good navy, what chance does Germany have even crossing the Atlantic Ocean?? Even if Germany say land troops in the East Coast of US, they'd just get slaughtered by the American defense and Air Force.
plus Hitler wasn't a fan of it
And given that Germany lost WW2 the second they stepped foot into the USSR (or, more accurately, the second Britain backed Poland) there was _no_ chance they would ever get CLOSE to the US: he also says that the USSR was larger than the USA which, while true, is less salient (pun intended) of a point than I think he thinks. The axis powers never planned to occupy the entirety of the USSR. Japan wanted Siberia, realistically as far as Lake Baikal; Germany only wanted to reach Arkhangelsk in the north and astrakhan in the south. the soviet union would still have control (for how long? who knows?) over Kazakhstan, central Asia, and central Russia: including areas west of the Ural Mountains.
I also disagree with his take that Germany andJapan could invade the US if the US could invade them.Tthe united states had an absolutely _massive_ fleet and produced, what, 12 carriers a year? Not only could japan never ever _ever_ win the Pacific War, but even if the US fleet was somehow destroyed then Japan could not only capitalize on the few months they'd have nor did they have the ability and supplies to facilitate a D-Day size landing on Hawai'i, let alone the West Coast. Germany was boxed in by the Royal Navy, and the Kriegsmarine was incredibly understaffed, underfunded, and inefficient. They also have the USSR to contend with, who they would never be able to defeat after 1930 at the absolute earliest.
Alexander the Great had absolutely no reason to go West. His causus belli was against Persia, part of the reason why his troops were starting to mutiny towards the end of his campaign was that he was going into India, which they frankly had no reason to invade.
Furthermore, the Mediterranean and Northern Africa just lacked both the sheer wealth and prestige of Persia, which was the single greatest power in the region. Could he have gone there instead of East? Yes. But unless you massively change the timeline to such an extent that Alexander the Great even being born requires an ASB, it's just not happening.
Similarly with Rome. Rome was built on slavery, and towards its later life was completely socially stratified. The flaws that brought it down were inherent to the system. Changing that would mean changing Rome into something that is distinctly not "Roman".
Especially the argument you bring forth, that if Rome remained strong it could have industrialized is faulty. A strong Rome has no reason to improve. It'd be like Qing China, whose elites refused to reform the country even with existential pressures put upon them, but without said existential pressures. So why would anyone who can change anything change anything? There's no reason for them to do so.
You ironically fall into the same fallacy you point out in believing that progress would just happen. To get rid of slavery, to develop the scientific method, to fundamentally change society to allow for social mobility, all of these things happened in our timeline in Europe due to a series of compounding happy circumstances, and even there they were anything but guaranteed. Without those circumstances, why would Rome go through these same developments? Again, ASB interference would be required.
As for Italy, while I have seen some calculations that Germany could have hypothetically made up for the loss of coal if it joined the war on the side of the Central Powers, it would a) still be risking total economic collapse, and b) requires the Habsburgs to give up territory that they see as theirs, which after all the humiliations and defeats they aren't willing to, and if you expect German diplomatic finesse to find a compromise I have a bridge to sell you.
Finally, while yes, there was a coup in Japan, it was small and fizzled out. The leadership knew they were done for, and between the bombing and Soviet invasion of Manchuria any hope for a negotiated settlement had gone out the window. Potential History (IIRC) made a video about why the Japanese surrendered where he goes into that.
Yea italy might join germany and austria if given tyrol but there is no way in hell, in my opinion that austria giving parts of tyrol or wholesail tyrol away. The austrians would not let their goverment live that down.
Also the fact that the Western Mediterranean region, including most of Western Europe, was seen for thousands as years as being economically poorer relative to the East. In fact, Western Europe didn't start slowly becoming the economic powerhouse it is now until arguably the late Middle Ages and Renaissance period.
At the risk of sounding dumb, what's an ASB?
This may be an ignorant question, but couldn't Alexander just make his casus beli the west? I get it's unrealistic
@@johnmcmanus2447 according to what I found online because I also didn't know what it meant, ASB stands for Alien Space Bats. From what I can see it means the theory would require significant outside interference to actually occur from an outside force like a alien
Keep in mind that the top 10 scenarios are from his viewers then he evaluated for the video. Some of the scenarios are popular alternate history theories within the community.
Will definitely defend Cody on the last scenario. The Nazi's couldn't even invade Brittan which was only ~50-60 Miles away. Meanwhile the Allies with Overwhelming air and naval still had many struggles on D-day. Germany could never hope to invade the USA. Japan had better odds than them, but their navy and industrial capacity was still woeful compared to the USA. Even if they somehow win key battles, their Asian Empire would be HUGE at around 700 million people. No way they could bother the invading the USA without imploding from overextension.
Japan would struggle to even capture Midway.
I think there is no scenario where Japan invades the US in the second world war (which is what the scenario is about) but I think that possibly after a few decades of consolidation of their "co-prosperity sphere" there is a very(!) fringe scenario (no atomic weapons for the US would be a necessity) where an axis victory in ww2 could eventually lead to an invasion of the US with the asian industry outperforming the US'. (Now why they would attack the US after decades of peace and probably trade, I don't know... they probably hate them for their freedom or maybe descendants of the interned japanese come to the new empire, to partake in it's prosperity and tell stories of how their parents were mistreated or the seemingly futile loss of life in the pacific theatre leads to even greater racism against asian americans and the conflict escalates... someone will come up with something that works at least for a short novel :D).
Furthermore, mainland USA's climate is extremely volatile. You have the deserts towards the West, Cascadian and Appalachian Mountains, freezing temperatures of Alaska and some Northern States. Disregarding supply chain and the superior American Navy
@@Utopia7281 No, the USA climate is not extremely volatile. The Mojave's climate, Alaskan climate, Cascadia climate, the Appalachian climate is relatively stable. The most unstable climate would be in the Southeastern region which is subject to being hit with hurricanes and tropical storms. The West's climate is so stable, it's the reason California is the most populous state currently.
@@Edax_Royeaux sorry, meant the geography. Though, you still have the tornadoes in the midwest as well
25:00 By the time of the war, Italy didn't consider the Alliance as valid anymore. They had agreed to continue it solely to prevent Austria from invading any of their lands, but they made it very clear that they considered Austria as enemies and aggressors.
Austria had invaded the Balkans without complying with the terms of the treaty, and when Italy complained, Austria basically told them to shut up and deal with it.
Also a big thing people forget is the Ottoman empire, Italy literally just went to war with them prior to WW1 and joining their side was probably seen in a bad light.
Yeah the Italians were in a bad spot. They hated Vienna and Constantinople, but they were afraid to break with them.
Once the war started, they saw their chance to break free and not risk immediate invasion by the Habsburgs.
They made an absolute killing as trade intermediaries for a while, too, which helped their economy.
Germany couldn't win WWI, unlike WWII.
@@genovayork2468 Germany had a far better chance of winning WW1 than WW2
@@gummilad2 No. The opposite even.
32:40 - He means alternative history that makes an intention of being believable, or at least trying.
? What
Exactly, otherwise why do we also have alternate universe? Lol
I love it when Chris does anything alternate history. He always has an amazing and unique perspective. So excited to see what it is. It's also becoming less common to find a less extreme perspective on historical subjects. Yet Chris manages to do so. Perfection.
"this isn't meant to be accurate" I think he probably should have said "plausible"
Or accurate to what plans for the axis powers were in the event of victory. For example, no way the Nazis gift Japan all that land around the world.
For Italy, the Triple Alliance only had some convenience for them. Italians fought numerous wars against Austria mostly in rebellion against theie rule. And held on to strategic areas containing ethnic Italians which they desired. Austria-Hungary can't risk collapsing itself by allowing even just one ethnicity to secede. Both countries (in their desires) were mortal enemies who were kept at bay by their alliance to Germany.
It wouldn't be a secession of an ethnicity, it'd be trading land for an alliance. Wholly different. One is involuntary, the other is a diplomatic play.
@@Rommel12Still, risks widespread unrest from the other ethnicities
@@Rommel12 Still not gonna happen.
@@Rommel12 If the Austrians were willing to give land to the Italians, it would give other countries who have people in Austrian territory a reason to also demand land from Austria as well.
“Russia is huge, and Germany invaded them”
Germany is also connected landwise with Russia.
"US did the same to Germany and Japan"
The US also had way a better capacity for Naval production than both Germany and especially Japan, and had both Britain and its own territories in the Pacific to stage their invasions.
I have to disagree with you regarding the point that if Rome survived, industrialisation would have happened sooner.
Rome had some fundamental flaws going back to their early days, that were core parts of their identity (connection between military and politics, slavery monopolised by a few elites causing the poor rural countryside to flee to the cities, etc.).
Rome was destined to fall centuries before it it did in our timeline, and it was necessary, in my opinion, as it hard-reset society. Rome has been stagnating for a very long time, and that's the reason why it fell.
The fall of rome brought new societies and new views, which ultimately led to progress beyond what rome achieved.
Rome couldn't have just grown and developed into infinity, and there isn't one simple thing you just need to change and everything is perfect now. It had a disloyal army, power-hungry generals, a poor unemployed population, massive social spending to feed the poor, slavery monopolised by elites. All of this causing instability and general stagnating.
Precisely. You need to radically reshape Roman culture, politics, society and academia to even have the foundations of a Roman Industrial Revolution, but by that point, why are you even still calling it Roman when it’s clearly not anymore? We have a debate about whether the Byzantine Empire is Roman but there’d be none about this prospective state, it would have the trappings of Rome at best, but otherwise bear no similarity to it at all.
i honestly think there's a decent position to make industrialization happen earlier: not while rome is still around, but perhaps if rome collapses in the crisis of the third century. an earlier roman collapse could realistically lead to an earlier end to the landlord-slave class system that rome embodied. if feudalism arises in, say, the fifth century instead of the ~eighth, then the bourgeois and proletarian bases necessary for capitalism and therefore widespread industrialization could come a couple centuries earlier. burghers by the 1200s, not by the 1500s; capitalism by the 1400s, not the 1700s. heck, maybe we'd even come full circle and go to proletarian class rule. impossible to guess, hard to theorize about, and impossible to envision what form it would take (would it even _happen?_ marx himself is already near impossible to exist in this timeframe, let alone theorists who contributed more to the theorization of proletarian dictatorship like engels and lenin. it could be permanent barbarism; global fascism, or at the very least class-collaboration [which makes up a MASSIVE foundation of fascism and the main motivation for it to arise, but i digress]).
@@piyo744 And this is the problem with commies; You think history is a maths equation where everything is predestined to happen with it simply being a matter of when, not if, and never once entertain for a second that you’re all completely wrong - which is why you persist with failed ideas even in the face of the century of failure.
No, you don’t get historical developments which happened in our timeline simply because Rome collapses earlier. Without the specific tribes and ethnic groups which make up the landscape of post-Roman Europe, we have no idea what kinds of social, economic or political systems might arise. Hell, without Constantine and Theodosius making Christianity the official religion of the Empire, it’s possible paganism remains a dominant force within society, which RADICALLY alters the way history plays out compared to our timeline. Without the Roman weakness allowing for Frankish invasions, we don’t get Charlemagne. Without Charlemagne, we don’t get the HRE. Without the HRE, we don’t get independent cities that allow for powerful merchants and burghers to arise in the first place.
These things are not destined to happen and it’s delusional Marxist fantasy to pretend that human nature can be rationalised that way, when every piece of evidence says the exact opposite.
Well France is also totally different now than it was in 1600, should we not call the modern country France anymore because it changed so much?
@@Longshanks1690there’s absolutely no need for any of the name calling mate.
For someone who's not trying to be difficult, you're doing a fantastic job. Like so many of the things you say could happen just couldn't have, logistically; you're not taking events in the context of what came before.
11:55 Keep in mind tho that by this time the vast majority of Danes in todays England have either been assimilated or massacred by Æthelred the Unready in the St. Bride’s Day massacre in 1002, or the Oxford massacre in 1004.
I think the issues you have with the premises are because you two are coming at this from completely different angles. You immediately accept the premise as its handed to you, someone says "What if Italy joined the Central Powers?" And you go "OK, Italy is in the Central Powers, now what happens?" Where as Cody is looking for IF there was the POTENTIAL of the scenario happening in our timeline. If we're continuing with the Italy example Cody is making the argument that so many PoD's would need to occur and the nations would need to act so "out of character" so to speak that there was never a chance of it happening. Same with High Castle at the end. He's not asking "What if history happened like in the book?", if you want that just read the book. It's "If somehow the Axis Powers won WW2 would the same events as Man in the High Castle happen?" And the answer is no. And both approaches are valid and useful, I just think you missed opportunities to commentate in this video because you kept arguing with the premise instead of analyzing it
The thing with 'What if Rome industrialises?' is that it relies on another question being answered first, like 'What if Rome lasted longer?' Same thing with Harald conquering England, you would need to ask, 'What if Harald defeated William when he had the chance?'
What could possibly be happening is that people are interpreting questions like these differently. You might catagorise some things as being applicable to the question at hand whereas he might think that they're vastly different things that require their own question.
Not to invalidate your view, because you do bring questions that I hadn't even considered before and your expertise on history is very helpful to understanding it better.
I think the main issue is he didn't consider some of these questions himself. Like he plays devil's advocate by saying Rome possibly could've industrialized if it lasted longer when that itself requires the scenario of Rome lasting longer in the first place.
I think with the Rome and steam power scenario he was more talking about most alt history is down to a single domino event. But to get the Romans to steam power is so many specic dominos the scenario becomes so many different what elifs because of the requirements it becomes a mess. I do think Rome could have industrialized but it would have taken a startling event and then a series of lucky chances to cause it
I vaguely remember a different youtuber expanding on the lack of social mobility as the main factor for there not to be an Industrialisation. Basically the only people who had the ressources to do it, didn't have the interest because they were rich anyway.
So as Chris said it, it's "the Rome we know" that could have never industrialised, maybe a potential Rome 600 years down the line could have, but that is - as you said - depended on a lot of requirements and the inability of Roman society to change, was kinda shown in it's decline and fall. Honestly it sometimes feels like a miracle that they lasted this long, considering the infighting, backstabbing and betraying of allies going on.
also im no expert but wasnt rome already on the decline even befiore 400 ad, how do we know rome would have kept advancing rather than just "delaying the inevtitable" if it wasnt attila the hun it would have been someone else?
@@username.exenotfound2943
Definitely.
Rome was on the decline for a VERY long time. Hell 200 years before it almost collapsed.
So I guess the point of divergence wouldn't be so late.
Maybe something that would cause the empire not to have the cluster duck that was it's decline.
@@xytech7432 Depends what you count as Rome. The Eastern half of the empire went on strong for several centuries more and then had its own drawn out decline.
@HDreamer
I count both.
And while it did go strong, it did not and I'd go far as to say could not reach what the WHOLE Roman empire could. For the best chances, the divergence has to be when Rome was united.
36:25 yes they are an ocean away and it needed the full economic Power of the US, springboards closer to the target and in the case of Germany a big chunk of the enemy forces being occupied elsewhere, to pull the Invasion off.
Considering both Germany and Japan would have been busy trying to hold together what they conquered, aka large regions of land with people who are not loyal to their new overlords, the specific Man in the High-Castle scenario is just not realistic. Maybe 2 or 3 Generations down the road, so a year 2k Invasion, but that would still have been difficult.
Also I think he means "the author didn't think too hard about how this scenario would happen and where the actual borders would be", when he talked about the map not being meant to be accurate.
Ohio shirt, fitting considering Cody is from Toledo
To me "The Man in the High Castle " is similar to "1984". It uses alternative history as a means to tell the story. Like how Star Trek uses space travel,
Yeah, MITHC is more of a scifi novel than a straight alternate history novrl.
@@mudnarchistChris coverd that said the same thing
I do post/consulting on Mesoamerican (Aztec, Maya etc) history and archeology: "Sunset Invasion" is obviously impossible, but I have issues with the specific reasons Cody gives (mainly, his description of how Aztec warfare worked is outdated, and he conflates unrelated cultures), and I also wanted to respond to some of the commentary you gave, which is where I'll start: It's true the Aztec specifically are a very recent culture and empire (by most definitions, forming between 1200-1420AD), but Mesoamerica DOES have civilizations going back many thousands of years, including in the same exact valley that would become the core of the Aztec Empire (and where Mexico City is today):
EX: Tlatilco was an early town with Olmec influences there around 1500-400BC (using the widest date ranges). A few centuries after that, Cuicuilco developed as a large city before volcanic eruptions around 0-200AD displaced people in the valley who concentrated into Teotihuacan (the second largest city after Cuicuilco). Teotihuacan then exploded in size, and at its height in 400-500AD, had 100,000 denizens; a ~20sqkm planned grid; complex waterworks and plumbing; with almost its whole population living in fancy palace compounds. It's art and architectural style spreads spreads down as far as Guatemala, where they may have even conquered some Maya city-states
Teotihuacan declines from what seems to be a civil uprising around 550-650AD, and Central Mexico balkanizes into a few smaller-medium sized kingdoms ruled by cities like Xochicalco, Cantona, Tula (often said to be the capital of the Toltecs, who the Aztec describe as a utopian intellectual civilization which existed from 700-1100AD, but these accounts are heavily mythologized), etc. Around 1200AD Nahuatl speaking nomads migrate in from Northwestern Mexico, adopting local urban statehood, and forming Aztec civilization as we know it. The "Aztec Empire" specifically formed when the cities of Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan overthrew their capital of Azcapotzalco in the late 1420s and then maintained an alliance for subsequent expansionism
So yeah, even if you ignore other parts of Mesoamerica and the Olmec, Maya, Zapotec, Mixtec, Totonacs, Purepecha, etc, the actual area the Aztec were centered in had civilization for 2000-2500+ years, even if the Aztec specifically where migrants to that area recently
Okay, so that aside, what about AltHistoryHub's video?
As I alluded to before, he conflates the Aztec with the Inca, even though the Inca are an Andean civilization, while the Maya, Aztec etc are Mesoamerican. The two regions had little contact and are as far apart as London is from Baghdad. Even for the Aztec specifically, his point about their mindset of warfare being different, focused on captive taking and Flower Wars, isn't accurate: While those were parts of Aztec warfare, they were not things all Aztec militarism revolved around
The Aztec's main goal in expansion was getting goods like gold, cacao, jade, fine feathers, obsidian etc by forcing city-states and kingdoms into relatively hands off tax-paying arrangements. It's not my area, so the comparison might be off, but it's sorta like with the Mongols where if you coughed up taxes, you mostly got left alone to self-manage, but if you didn't, you'd get invaded. Even when a city did refuse/resist, or even when subjects stopped paying taxes, the Aztec response was (usually) not instant escalation to razing, massacres, and mass enslavement: They did that stuff sometimes (especially if a city incited OTHERS to also stop paying taxes), but usually just demanded steeper taxes the more a city resisted prior to it finally being conquered, and even in those cases still usually left local rulers and laws in place, though sometimes they did place military governors onto subjects or soldiers in garrisons to dissuade rebellions
This sort of hands-off arrangement was typical in Mesoamerica: There were no draft animals, and the terrain was mostly highland valleys and mountains or lowland jungles and swamps. Long distance administration and campaigns were difficult, you so it was easier to be hands off and leave local power in place and coerce it, then to order things in a top down manner. But if you're razing cities, burning fields, enslaving or sacrificing whole populations, how are they gonna cough up the cacao, gold, etc? You're spending significant manpower to trek and carry supplies on foot with no draft animals, across difficult terrain terrain just to annihilate the place you're trying to take advantage of and then have to rebuild or repopulate it. That's simply not efficient and wasn't how they normally did things.
If what they cared about was mostly collecting captives for sacrifice, then that wouldn't be a concern. But the primary goal was economics (both to get resources, and to then flex that economic network to court political marriages and alliances, constant expansion also flexed military power: With this hands-off political system, the only thing stopping subjects and vassals from seceding is that carrot-and-stick) and we see the Aztec specifically target city-states and kingdoms with rich economic resources during their expansion. They conquered Xoconusco/Soconusco, all the way down in Chiapas, almost Guatemala, to secure as a source of Cacao, for example.
Demanding captives/slaves as taxes wasn't common either: For example, it only shows up ONCE in the Codex Mendoza compared to dozens of tax listings for material goods and supplies. And even that one tax-demand of captives isn't the province (Tepeacac) being told to supply their own people, but rather to supply captured soldiers taken from Tlaxcala, Huextozinco, Cholula etc: States the Aztec were enemies with, IE an indirect demand to help besiege those states. (That said, civilians were often given as slaves, in addition to soldiers captured in the battle, as part of offer by a state when it surrendered after losing to an invasion: It's just regular payments of captives as annual taxes after that point was rare)
Okay, so what IS the deal with taking captives? It was certainly a common and important part of warfare, but, but at least for the Aztec, the consensus is now that it was secondary to actual tactical military objectives and goals. After all, these were organized armies with proper unit divisions and ranks, armor (AlthistoryHub shows Aztec soldiers wearing Jaguar pelts like cave men, when they had padded gambeson armor: it's just the warsuits/tunics worn over the gambeson had patterns, such as jaguar spots, made from a mosaic of iridesecent feathers), bespoke weapons (swords/macuahuitl, different kinds of clubs, maces, axes, spears, glaives, pikes, bows, atlatl, slings etc) and we have records of complex tactics like pincer formations, feigned retreats, ambushes, and so on
Captive taking seems to mostly happen after enemy lines break: you probably wouldn't have seen soldiers going out of their way to avoid killing during the middle of a close battle. The fact that captive taking was so important to rank advancement itself betrays that it was a rare/impressive feat, rather than it being the norm instead of killing an enemy, especially since different kings gave decrees saying from then on captured soldiers from X or Y state would grant extra or no rank promotions, based on if they were perceived to be formidable or weak (or how important a military target/threat they were)
Finally, Flower Wars: As I alluded to before, not all wars were Flower wars. In fact, they seem to not even be that particularly common. There is come contradictory info on this, but the Mexica seemingly only regularly employed them against Tlaxcala, Huextozinco, etc in an offensive capacity. They were sometimes done between the Mexica and existing subjects, but these were mutually agreed on in special circumstances like to cement alliances (though this fact allegedly was kept secret from commoners, so they wouldn't know their lives were used for pageantry). Next, these were not just ritual conflicts about getting captives (in fact I've seen some assertions that they did involve killing in battle too, or that captives were released, etc), but also had pragmatic military utility
Against enemy states, Flower Wars were a way to dip your toes into the water with lower intensity warfare, which could then escalate into full normal warfare, or could be called off. EX the wars with Chalco gradually evolved from Flower Wars to become increasingly pragmatic and serious over time. Their smaller scale also meant they could be waged year round (unlike normal wars) and/or for many years straight, as a sort of extended siege to wear enemy states down (Traditional siege warfare wan't common in Mesoamerica, tho this is debated a bit). Flower Wars also kept soldiers trained and fit when they might otherwise not have been in the field, and provided opportunities to collect captives, keeping soldiers invested in a military career as a result. Some researchers even believe the entire idea of Aztec flower wars against Tlaxcala etc was just revisionism by Aztec sources to justify when they could never conquer the state(s)!
There's more I could say, and admittedly, again, there's some contradictrary information about Flower Wars and sieges/garrisons. There's also the fact that "Aztec" is a pretty imprecise term: Since each subject was mostly indepedent, they had their own different practices. And, again, captive taking WAS still important and there WERE ritual elements to Mesoamerican warfare. To play devil's advocate, some researchers have argued that the literature has overcorrected, and now the ritual elements are downplayed too much instead of being overemphasized as they used to be. But AltHistoryHub is certainly overemphasizing it, as even if ritualism was A aspect of Aztec militarism, certainly economics, tactics, and politics were too
I think you forget that Hitler didn't like Naval warfare that much, mostly because it sapped a lot of resources. He played it defensively in the Atlantic, mostly just going after American supply ships.
I thought he didn't like the navy, because he viewed them as all socialist after the 1918 revolt?
I don't even know what you're talking about, he was like a kid in a candy store when it came to developing Plan Z. He personally approved the construction of 10 Battleships, 3 Battlecruisers, 15 Pocket Battleships, 40 cruisers, 4 Aircraft Carriers and 68 Destroyers.
@Edax_Royeaux while true, funding would then get cuts back and focused to U-boats and the Army.
@@Edax_Royeaux Doesn't change how pathetic Germany's Navy was in WW2. By the time the US got involved in 1941, the Royal Navy alone had already sent 90% of the Kriegsmarine's surface fleet to the bottom of the Atlantic. Now imagine if the Kriegsmarine went up against the US Navy. So even if Germany defeated Great Britain, it wouldn't even be able to reach the US East Coast. The US Navy was already slapping around the Japanese navy, which was one of the most powerful in the world at the time and was Far more powerful than Germany's, less than a year after it got into the war. What chance did the Kriegsmarine have? Heck, even the Italian Navy performed better and lasted longer than Germany's. (As a side note: For all the jokes about Italy in WW2, people don't realize that the Regia Marina was an actual menace)
@@emperorkane317 Just because the Kriegsmarine was pathetic, does not mean Hitler didn't like naval warfare. He wanted a giant fleet and he ordered a giant fleet and he was quite involved with designing this giant fleet that was meant to be ready by 1948. He even assured Admiral Raeder that war would not come until 1948 so he could get his grand fleet.
Old Britainia explained it best...italy was never friends with Austria Hungary around WW1 and waiting for the reason to stab them in the back. I think that the italians changing face was predictable as well as inevitable. They wanted the destruction of Austria hungary
Both Oppenheimer and Einstein both said later in life that they regretted helping the US develop nuclear weapons and that if they had known how far Germany was from making nukes they wouldn't have brought their work to the US.
Two of my favorite history channels coming together
I love Alternate History. Sometimes the smallest change could have gigantic consequences.
I'm going to comment on three of these scenarios
1: Harald Haldrada was after York, not London he was reclaiming the Danelaw not England as a whole because it is where he had local support for his invasion. If he wins at Stamford Bridge he then marches and takes York ,so William gets almost a free pass in October landing at Pevensey and marching on London. England splits back again in to the Danelaw and the now Norman duchies of Wessex, Kent and Mercia. You could then argue that the "Historical" northern suppression under William then happens as an "invasion of the North" and we get a pitched battle somewhere on the great north road near York, with two formidable armies; the Danelaw aligned with vikings from Dublin fighting and probably a contingent of Anglo-Saxon rebels under Edgar Atheling ,against the new Anglo-Norman army, in I estimate about 1068/9 - It would be an interesting what if battle to war-game anyway.
So History would repeat itself as it so often does.....as it is similar to the events when Aethelstan invaded the north and fought the Battle of Brunanburh in 937 (which we have as yet no idea where this battle happened but the archaeologists are still actively looking), when the Anglo-Saxons plan started under Alfred, is completed by his grandson and is original creation of the English kingdom happens.
2. ACW with British involvement- Every-time the US has invaded Canada it gets its butt kicked back South and 50% of the time the White house gets set on fire! its just not a good idea. On the whole Canadians are really nice people who like to stay nice as much as possible with you....... unless you declare war with them; then they turn into your worse nightmare and fight you in ways that that are "really unpleasant" (today some of these "methods" are considered to be war-crimes!). So its "like never get involved in a land war in SE asia", or "Never fight on 2 fronts simultaneously"...."Don't invade Canada it really is not worth the pain that will happen to you".
3. Germany and the A bomb- this was not happening anytime soon under the man with the mustache- in reality the massive inefficiency of the German state, they could never centralised their efforts under one group, disparate groups with small bits of research being ultimately duplicated multiple times. So the closest the Germans got was the "Reich's post office" (no not joking on this one) building a nuclear reactor which could have made small amounts of fissile U235 and Pu239 and releases some energy. but only about 1/100th of the amount to build a viable weapon.
Even if all the competing factions in Germany get anywhere by cooperation is still cant match the Manhattan Project in its resources, and they still had to build an intercontinental delivery system which could get across the Atlantic (probably a big missile).
2 - The USA of the mid-19th century was different to the USA of the Revolution or War of 1812. Because something happened before doesn't mean it should happen again. The USA had grown in industrial might, and they might possibly couldhave invade Canada and annexed territories. Britain would have had to withdraw troops from India and Africa, thus curtailing colonial expansions there. There is no way Britain at that point could have entered DC and burtn the white house. Had there been a war under President Harrison which was possible, Britain would have lost and possibly lost some Caribbean colonies too. Maybe most of Ontario and Quebec would be American from that point.
Btw, the Gernans considered nukes Jewish science if that says anything.
Congrats you proved that the alternate history didn't happen.
🤣
Several Chinese empires managed to conquer Vietnam. Not super impossible
Reminder from a Canadian, that a large part of the Geneva Conventions were written because of things that Canada did during WWI.
It's important to note that the standard Cody is using to judge the realism of a scenario is how many point of divergences (PoD's) are necessary for that scenario to occur. So, for example, while one might argue that, had Rome remained a powerful empire for a few centuries longer than it did, it could have industrialized, the sheer number of PoD's required for that to happen is simply not realistic. It needs to be understood that the fall of the Romans was an extremely multifaceted event in history. There wasn't just one thing, or even a small set of things, that doomed Rome to fail. There were hundreds of factors going against the Romans, and a large number of them were capable of triggering Rome's fall in one way or another. As a result, one would need a large number of PoD's to prevent Rome from falling long enough for them to industralize.
I think analyzing the value of alternate history scenarios in this way is incredibly helpful for understanding history, because oftentimes the unrealistic scenarios are the ones that shape popular views of history. I think there are at least some people out there who think that Man in the High Castle is a plausible scenario and that such a conclusion has shaped their view of history and, consequently, modern war and politics today. I'm sure the common claim that "America would not be a free country today if the Axis won WW2," is heavily premised on the fact that the Axis would have occupied the American heartland if they won. These ideas about history reinforce political beliefs in politics today, such as claims that it is *absolutely necessary* that America remains the strongest military power in the world. If I was an isolationist in America, I could use these misconceptions about history and skewer some arguments for American interventionism. Beliefs about the necessity of nuclear weapons today are certainly influenced by false ideas about how much the atomic bombings motivated Japan's surrender. Such ideas are reinforced by unrealistic alternate history scenarios.
Funny thing about Roman industrialization, their counterparts the Han Chinese was the closest to achieving it without realizing it. They were already exporting steel to Rome as a product aside from other Silk Road goods. Chinese irons and steel were cheap in relative to Romans because the Chinese made theirs through the use of blast furnace for cast-iron manufacturing. They figured out that it is quicker and cheaper to mass produce goods, especially agricultural tools for plowing, through continuously-fed furnace. Now the Romans did have blast-furnace as well but they were more ‘domestic’ market than the Hans were. They just couldn’t figure out how the economy of scale works.
>They just couldn’t figure out how the economy of scale works.
Eh, disagree. For example archeologists excavated multi-ton glass slabs which supposedly were then shipped across the Mediterrain and transformed into finished products, so Romans could do stuff at scale when they knew what they were doing. Romans more likely couldn't figure out the connection between higher temperature and better steel.
Scientists unearthed at one point remains of ~73 Roman kilns at a single spot, and some of the largest kilns known were meters high as a result Romans made so much pottery they could:
A) literally single use it
B) create a hill (Monte Testaceo) just from pottery used to ship oil to Rome.
Romans absolutely knew how to scale things when they understood what they were doing.
30:45 The Japanese coup attempt was very minimal in scope and didn’t have massive government or military backing. Japan was trying to find a way out of the war and had been for weeks by that point.
It only took 11 naval officers to take out Prime Minister Inukai and completely warp the Japanese government to be dismissive of democracy and of the rule of law. It sparked off the February 26 incident that took out a further 2 former Prime Minsters along with several leading members of the government, even though the coup d'état ultimately failed, it still had an inescapable effect on the Japanese government, leading to more military control.
It may have been even "weaker" than that. One explanation was that the coup attempt that night was really a sort of kabuki dance, meant from the outset to fail (including by its own leaders), and even that it was actually instigated BY the imperial family, rather than against it. The purpose being to distance the Emperor from "the militarists" in Western eyes, and increase the chances that the imperial regime would endure through the Occupation. From that perspective, perhaps one could characterize the attempt as "successful". I don't know if I accept this interpretation, but I don't wholly dismiss it either.
you don't stockpile fuel and ammo to "find a way out of the war"
A "slightly softer version" of the unconditional surrender had already been offered by Japan, & rejected by the Allies.
And yet Japan actually got what they really wanted (or at least what the palace & government wanted): the throne survived the occupation and Japan still has an Emperor today. It's hard to avoid mention of the opposite counterfactual scenario than the one discussed in the video: that the Pacific War could have ended sooner than it actually did. Not only without the A-bombs, but perhaps also without such horrific battles as Okinawa and Iwo Jima, IF the Allies had bent a little on "unconditional" regarding the imperial institution...which they wound up doing anyway.
@cragnamorra keeping the Emperor wad a last resort for Japan. Before Potsdam they also wanted to keep their army, keep the remaining territories they held & conduct their own war crimes trials.
@@cragnamorra Japan only got what they wanted with the Emperor was because of personal actions of MacArthur, the majority of the UK and US public wanted the Emperor punished.
"slightly softer" a pair of shoes
they wanted to keep the colonies
and "process war criminals" (=self absolution) on their own and 0 occupation
these were simply OUTRAGEOUS
and negotiators acted on their own
also the head of the tenno was never under question
I have to side with Cody on the last one, it was never going to happen in a million years. Even ignoring all the factors that need to play out in the favor of the Axis for them to beat the British and Soviets, there still are so many factors to consider, it really is hard to grasp.
Most of all, I don't think many people realize how painstakingly difficult amphibious invasions are. Just look at D-day. The allies literally had all the advantages they could dream off, years of prep time, a well secure and unsinkable base of operation in Britain, total air superiority, most of the enemies ground troops being hold down far away in the east, successfully tricked the opponent into thinking that they would attack in Calais. Yet they still had to endure some absolute horrendous casualties and fights to establish a beach head in Normandy. The Nazis didn't even attempt Operation Sealion, being well aware that it would be literal suicide. There have been countless simulated war games with all the factors being firm in Germany's favor, they all ended in disaster for them. The gist is that trying to invade the U.S. by sea would be an incredible, difficult endeavor.
And that's just the tip of the iceberg. The German surface fleet was a joke, and U-boats don't do much for Naval Invasion aside from attacking coastal targets. The Japanese had a more formidable fleet, but it got blown to pieces at Midway and Leyte Gulf. Of course, we can assume that the U.S. never actively takes part in the war and sticks to isolationism, but even then it would take years to even build a fleet capable to attempt a landing force. Both side of the US coast are littered with mountains and desserts, with the big industrial centers being well within the continent. Every U.S. Citizen is would be armed to the teeth. And even using Canada or Mexico as a landing base requires endless colones of supplies, which are easily exploitable from a defensive land based position. And Canada and Mexico likely would risk a preventive counterstrike of the US.
Finally, I just don't see Nazi Germany or Japan to have the logistics and sheer manpower to both hold on to their occupied territories and launch a full scale land invasion towards the U.S. Britain, the Soviets and China may all be defeated temporarily and forced to sign truces. But they would have absolutely jumped at the Germans/Japanese the moment they would turn their attention elsewhere and. Britain still had Canada, India, New Zealand, Australia and more of the Commonwealth to bounce back from. And the rest of the world as well as general evolutions, be it militarily or not, never really stand still. By the mid 50es to 60es, the U.S. would have like 20-30 Super Carrier Groups with multipurpose jet aircraft and long range high altitude bombes capable of launching nukes pretty much anywhere in the world. The invasion forces would have been sunk to the bottom of the Atlantic/Pacific, and subsequently Berlin/Tokyo turned into a nuclear wasteland, before they ever set a foot on American soil.
Alternate history is awesome
Potential History did a really good video about why Japan surrendered and maybe you could do a reaction to that as why Japan surrendered is such a debated topic and there are many misconceptions about it.
Yeah that video was way better than Shaun's video on the matter
Italy in both World Wars was like that friend every group hates because he can't stop messing up.
A couple things I would like to mention about the Harold H. scenario. I know historians have mapped out what the weather was probably like during the year 1066 by reading what accounts we have and knowing weather patterns today. And the weather that was holding William back in Normandy was speeding Harold H. to England. So if William got the winds he needed to land in England first, it might have delayed Harold H. even longer and gave Harold G. the chance to recoup. Also, while the northern part of England had a lot of people of Danish decent, the south was majority Saxon German and probably have resisted Harold H. as much as they resisted William.
They weren't German. northern England was a hybrid of Norse and Anglo-Saxons.
@@Trecesolotienesdos I said northern England had a lot of Danish/Norse decent. It was southern England that was mostly Anglo Saxon and the Saxons came from Germany.
@@jamessapp4989 Anglo-Saxon means English.
@@genovayork2468 Today it means English, but not long after the year 400 A.D., England was invaded and settled by the Saxons (German), and they became the Anglo-Saxons.
@@jamessapp4989 It always means English, kid.
Regarding the Roman industrialization idea, I think the primary spark for such a thing would be the printing press making reading, writing, scientific, and philosophical efforts more possible and widespread. Of course, the "printing press" here involves multiple inventions - particularly inexpensive paper and ink. But if that was somehow put into existence in the 1st century, we could potentially see a lot of the scientific and enlightenment revolutions happening during the age of the Roman Empire and see the industrial age come much sooner.
Regarding Harald Hardrada's chances of conquering England:.
1. He was King of Norway not the King of the Danes who had (under Canute) had been the King of England only 30 years before. The Godwinsons (Harold of Wessex family) had actually served Canute before his line died out and Edward the Confessor regained the throne. When Harald (and Harold's brother Torstig) arrived in the north they were resisted by Edwin, Earl of Mercia, and his brother Morcar, Earl of Northumbria, at the Battle of Fulford, outside York. Following this victory they received the surrender of York. Having briefly occupied the city and taken hostages and supplies from the city they returned towards their ships.
2.Harald had a finite army. The Norwegians were NOT welcomed by the Anglo Saxons and English Danes and he and Torstig did not gain any significant reinforcements from the local populace. This means that even if Harald defeated and killed Harold at Stamford Bridge the Norwegian army would have been battered and further weakened. Harold reinforced his army as he marched south to confront William. Harald wouldn't have had that reinforcement. So his army, after two battles won, would still have taken casualties which he could not replensih quickly.
3. Marching south to fight William. Consider he would be marching through hostile territory the whole way (remember he is Norwegian not a Dane, his army is going to suffer further attrition and require the allocation of garrisons along his route to keep his supply line back to his boats in Yorkshire secure. His army (which was around 9000 strong would be rather small by the time it reached southern England to face Williams 15,000. In fact the English would likely have resisted or at least not assisted any advance made by the Norwegians. I think this is why Harald retreated after beating the Northern Earls. He was a long way from his base (Norway) and all he could do once he realised that Torstig had lied about the support he claimed would welcome his arrival, was pull back towards his original base and maybe even reboard his ships and simply raid coastal towns. Harold stopped this by force marching north before Harald had decided his next move.
4. Battle joined: Regarding the Norwegians vs the Normans in battle yes the situation is sort of similar to the one Harold faced against William (minus the numbers the Saxons could deploy).. An infantry based army vs an army with a large cavalry base supported by infantry armed, in part, with archers is always interesting but the initiative is always with the cavalry heavy army and if, like William, you know how to use that advantage, the infantry based army is in trouble. . I do not doubt that the Norwegians would have held as well as the Saxons against the Norman cavalry charges but the Norwegians did not have many archers so Harald could not reply effectively against the Norman archers supplemented by the Breton, javelin armed, cavalry bombarding the Norwegian Shield Wall any more than King Harold Godwinson, and the Norwegian would have a lot less men. Attrition by fire would have weakened the Shield Wall until a cavalry charge could break it up and once broken there was nothing left but the slaughter.
So I agree with him, Harald of Norway had no chance on doing more than having a good old fashioned raid before buggering off home.
Hey Chris, as someone who has watch more of Cody's videos. It might help to know that he has really leaned into keeping motivations, and actions of people, nations etc. To be logically consistent to his own interpretation of said actions and motivations.
An example of this is his video on Alexander Hamilton becoming president. He largely rules out Hamilton running for Pres. due to his assessment of Hamilton's lack of a presidential run IRL, yet transposes the same actions over to another timeline. And has him puppteering another person, vs just simply making him run. It is a slightly more restricted what if ism when he approaches his videos.
A little insight from a Spaniard. Most of the national army sided with Franco while the Republicans were in disarray. If you want more details, George Orwell has this amazing book (Homage to Catalonia) where he talks about his experience volunteering to fight among the Communist faction in 1936-37. The moment he enlisted, he was promoted to Corporal since almost all of his companions were teenagers. The guns they were provided with were antique and of very poor quality. The Condor Legion was crucial, yes, and the Allies not intervening as well, but it looked pretty bad from the very start for the Republicans.
Because these came from his discord, they are very clearly for the alt history community, and addressing things that are often referenced. He’s not saying they are impossible, he’s saying they are less likely than many in the community like to think they are.
Ok, just so you know you can't be a REAL historian until you do a video on the Honeytree War.
Hating a little too much on this dude. Several of his points were entirely valid. Man in the High Castle for example, his point is that it wasn’t a realistic alternate history. You can write alternate history based on realistic scenarios, or you can make it entirely fictional. That was his point.
Not hating at all. Just offering some devil's advocacy on some of his points.
@VloggingThroughHistory first, i love your channel, keep being who you are, Second, i think the reason you dissagreed with many of these is (and many other people have said this already) but you can AltHistory are looking at Alt History from Different perspectives. Still, love your stuff, your incredible!
22:57 On top of that, America was no longer its 1776 and 1812 self. Within 6 months of the Proclaimation going into effect, Lincoln had finally found a team of generals that could defeat the Confederacy: Meade, Grant, and Sherman. To these would be added generals like George Thomas, Phillip Sheriden, and as you've pointed out Ambrose Burnside who (despite Burnside's good plan at Fredericksberg going down to miscommunication) were highly competent. Canada would not have been a difficult target for the large, veteran armies that won at Gettysberg and Vicksburg commanded by good generals like the ones that won those battles. None of this would have escaped the notice of Britain.
The Axis would never have considered the idea of invading the US mainland during the WWII time period. They simply did not have the naval or logistical reach for it. There was no scenario that the Germans could even pull off Sealion, much less crossing the Atlantic in force.
And while Japan had a larger and more capable navy than Germany, they were designed to secure the island chains around them, and didn’t have the range to even reach Hawaii. They only pulled off Pearl Harbor because they pushed their carriers to the very extremes of their operational range.
Perhaps things could be different in an Axis v Allies Cold War, but an actual invasion of the US itself in the ‘40s or even ‘50s was never in the cards.
Man that Italy scenario was really out there. Glad to see you had another perspective.
You really don't get the point of his video. He has talked about this before (when talking about WW2), at what point are you requiring so many divergences that your subject no longer resembles what you started with. Alexander the Great was on Champaign for Glory, not to rule. There was little glory to be won fighting in Italy, to change Alexander enough that he is more interested in squashing small regional powers to take their lands rather than defeating Great Powers makes him a completely different character. Same with Rome industrializing. You have to add so many more things to their culture as well as probably centuries of time before they can industrialize, are they even the Roman Empire at that point? We call the Eastern Roman Empire something different (Byzantium) because it has enough fundamental differences that we need to clarify it, and they are far closer to the Roman Empire than a prospective Rome that could industrialize.
I think from a mental framing perspective, the way Cody went about this and the way he tends to go about his alternate history videos is picking a POD and then sticking with "reasonable" fallout or changes from there. Each of the ones he does are certainly not always one change but usually kept minimal. Some of the scenarios in this video require a whole cascade of changes, many of which are quite large, to work out. I think that's where he's getting for some of these when he says there's no way. All that said, I also disagree with him on some of these, at least with his characterizations if not his entire premise. Still love the channel and the video though. There are no completely "correct" answers with alternate history after all, we all get our own opinions.
The two big reasons America couldn't be successfully invaded in World War II are the Atlantic and the Pacific. Even with all of America's industrial and sealift capabilities, those two factors greatly affected its ability to wage overseas war and how it waged it. A POD that impacted US intervention outside the Americas to the extent that the Axis win is plausible. One that led to the conquest of the US is not.
Please take the 8 Values political Quiz. Maybe live stream it?
I would love to see that.
About Alexander going west to Rome, he'd have a very hard time convincing people that it was a worthy target, while his army was built to take on Persia (the big threat for the last 150-200 years).
While in our timeline, Rome only appeared on the greek radar after threatening some greek cities in southern Italy. Still, it didn't draw the ire of Macedonia, but of the smaller Epirus, Pyrrhus seeing an opportunity to raise his own power then be stronger against Macedonia, so it was taking on Rome or no one else. All that was after Alexander.
There wouldn't be any reason for Alexander to strike an italian backwater instead of Persia.
Hey man I found your channel a few weeks ago and have been hooked! History is one of my favorite subjects and channels like yours are the reason why. Thanks!
The Sunset Invasion is a scenario in Europa Universalis IV that plays under the idea that american civilizations had (by magic and alien intervention) westernized before the game starts, so they are in equal footing to the great european powers technologicaly. The thing about that scenario in real life lacks a crucial component (I know, people tend to go with the lack of tech and knowledge to dismiss it, but it's simpler): The "NEED". Europe needed to reach India and Asia for their products, and that's what makes the scenario impossible. No one embarks on a costly and dangerous trip for the giggles. Even the Vikings sailed towards England because they knew there were lands to pillage there. Even if the Aztecs, Mayas or Incas had the tech, they had no reason to go exploring an ocean away, while they didn't even explored the rest of the continent, let alone go on a conquest spree when there was plenty more to conquest at home (remember, maps lie. South America alone has 70% more surface than all of Europe, and it's even bigger than Russia).
7:55 Yes he said drought. You picked it up VTH because you've likely read a beer menu in an English style pub where you were looking at what was on tap. Jolly good my good man!
I think the best alternate history timelines are ones with a singular point of divergence. For example the King of England (George V) defies parliament and allows Nicholas II asylum in England. Maybe they broker a deal with the US or Canada to get him out of Europe.
Through bargaining and appealing to "the greater good" the passage HE HAS WAGED CRUEL WAR was never removed from the declaration of independence and the now former slaves where armed to help fight the British.
Spain takes full responsibility and apologizes/pays the US for the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor.
Booth is stopped from Killing Lincoln. He still shoots Lincoln but he is tackled and only shoots him in the shoulder/arm maiming the president instead of killing him.
Garfield's doctors (fearing the worst) leave the bullet in him and leave him be.
Teddy Roosevelt drops out of the race and supports Taft against Wilson after he is shot. After he gives his speech he then gets treatment for the wound and instead of continuing on says that the "bull moose" is better off helping Taft and supports Taft's bid for reelection vs Woodrow Wilson.
The Germans don't sink the Lusitania. They capture and board the vessel allowing the civilians to leave or be held as POWs.
The Treaty of Versailles is far more lenient and is based on Wilson's 14 points.
@@BooyaCS Versailles was extremely lenient, Lusitania's passengers being prisoners wouldn't change much.
@@genovayork2468Versailles was harsh enough to wind up the Germans (and play into the reactionary and conservatives' victim complexes) but not harsh enough to actually have an effect on them. Either making it harsher or nicer could've worked.
Or, even, actually enforcing it after a certain point.
@@TheGerkuman I think making it more lenient wouldn't have worked.
You hit the nail squarely on the head several times, with your critiques. A lot of alternate historians are obsessed with "realism" because they are focused very heavily on great man and scientific theories of history... which is ironic because they also tend to actively dismiss or disparage those theories and rightly so. They also tend to be very stuck in the mindset of military history equals general history, so they tend to have blind spots or partial blind spots with regards to diplomacy, trade, science and technology, and espionage.
28:56 Don't forget Oppenheimer was just the chief of this WORLD project. If he dies, he can be replaced. They are plenty of scientits coming from Europe who worked on this project and were at least as competent as Oppenheimer.
If the war had gone differently, and UK loses... then the germans and the japaneses can attack the USA from Canada. He just completely forgot that. They can even launch a sea offensive from the Carribeans
If you look at sources from the Japanese government around the end of the war there was actually a lot of talk of maybe using the Soviets as a mediator or possibly even challenge the West after the war in Europe ended, although those who did believe they could get the West-Soviet Alliance to break apart were more or less living in a fantasy world at that point in time.
You also have to remember the ingrained culture in Japan at the time, the Emperor was seen as a living god, if he wanted the country to surrender no one would dare challenge that, even if they wanted to. Those who committed the coup were officers in the military, and were so radical in their beliefs that they probably would have killed the Emperor. Challenging the Emperor's decision was seen as dishonorable in Japanese society at the time, which is why the coup was swiftly put down. It's an interesting part in Japanese history that is sometimes overlooked.
Chris seems awfully aggressive during the whole reaction. The whole "isn't that what your whole channel is about?" almost sounds like a personal attack
I disagree very much
Yeah. Honestly I think AHH was a little misleading when he said some of these were impossible, mainly because they didn't happen irl. Like that's the point of alternate history dude. A good portion of these were plausible if a few events changed.
On the other hand VTH thinking that Japan was willing to keep fighting in 1945 and Italy was on friendly terms with Austria-Hungary in 1914 proves he's not nearly the expert he claims he is.
@@mudnarchist The thing is - alternate history is about plausible scenarios. Its really easy to justify whatever you want (Point of fact I once justified Venice becoming leading power of split Italy by making Napoleon not invade Russia). Since this is the case most "serious" alternate history expect scenarios that have very plausible events that could have went either way flipping around. Once you start to set things up to justify the change you want to make you enter a spiral. First thing is that you are creating very implausible scenario and the much larger issue is that any change you make has usually much bigger impact than expected and it gets worse once they start to be socio-economic. Thats why these are bad scenarios of alternate history.
Aggressive? I definitely don’t think I’d go that far… he just disagreed with stuff, and he always explained why.
I've heard i think stories from japanese people during ww2 that said the nukes didn't really change their minds on the war because they were already being bombed to hell by regular american raids directed by Lemay. On the other hand, the russians joining the war had a much bigger impact because they had been anxious and afraid for months that it would happen. We know now that nukes are way worse than regular bombs, but in the moment of the war, I don't think the nukes had that much of an impact. Hell, if the nukes were that scary, Japan prob would've surrendered before it was dropped. Also we know now that america dropping the bombs was more of a show of force to the soviets for what would happen after the war.
14:02 I don't usually play this card but I'm Chinese-American and can tell you it would be really hard for even Ming China to conquer the Americas.
The law of Anime is that the more exotic your character is, the more powerful he or she is; especially if they're on their own. So a jaguar warrior could probably slay like 5 conquistadors, at once, if he steps into europe. And you can bet he'll make it to europe, because every anime has a twist!
However, if he's still in the americas, he's surrounded by others like him, so he's a goner.
The way alternate history goes nowadays is that the divergence points should be small in number. The number of divergence points and the associated requirements are mostly what he is complaining about.
Hi toaster here, I kind of agree that the Italy joining the Central Powers portion was partially incorrect. in my initial essay I focused more on the reliance on trade with the Allied powers, and how joining the Central Powers would throw the nation into an economic shock due to the complete and utter reliance on allied Imports Italy was, and not the whole Italia Irredenta portion, in fact I believe (this was awhile ago) I included a segment discussing the possibility of Austria offering to concede more lands to Italy in order for their intervention (however I also believe this is impossible due to extreme ethnic tensions in the empire at the time, obviously). The original idea was why Italy would never join the Central powers, not why Italy joining the Central Powers wouldn't win Germany the war, as in many battles even a slight diversion of troops could have lead to more German victories, and Italy fighting France would cause a serious diversion of Entente troops and free millions of Austrian soldiers. Hope this clears up any confusion, and I'd love a critique of this take as well. happy to send over the essay if you'd like to read it.
Also fun thing, Germany's involvement in the Spanish Civil war was mild, however Italy's was extensive, so should Italy pull their support, I definitely think the republicans could have won the war. (but that's not my essay and not my area of expertise)
A more plausible point of departure for English history would be Knut, King Canute, having better luck with his sons, and keeping England and Scandinavia together as one society.
So, there is actually proof of this. There's a great video by Shaun who went into the timeline for the surrender of Japan. They truly thought the Russians would not invade them. The Japanese ambassador repeatedly wrote, as he was the one on the ground back home that the Russians had no desire to work with them. But, the same council whom he was in contact with said outright "keep pushing for him to help negotiate a surrender"
Some members of the Japanese high council were so convinced of their own beliefs about the world new info was ignored. Full delusion like Nazi Germany.
The Japanese media was highly censored. Even the widely read Mein Kampf had been censored to remove Hitler's racism against Asians, leading to a distorted view on Nazi Germany amongst Japanese zealots.
But Shaun is a liberal pundit so he's biased
Great video, VTH. It's super hot outside where I live, so I'm grateful that you got a video for me to enjoy. Thanks!
Not only would Italy staying with the Central Powers be a plausible outcome for a Central Powers victory, Italy joining no matter what changes the outcome a whole lot no matter who's side.
We've seen the damage Italy joining the Entente did in our timeline, but If Austro-Hungary offers Italy the land they wanted and said, "We'll give you what you want so long as you remain Neutral." unless the Entente can come up with a better offer, Italy will take the deal and stay neutral denying the Entente another front and allowing the Central Powers more resources they can use on the other European fronts.
If Austro-Hungary offered the land Italy wanted from them and offered land from France such as Corsica, Savoy, & Niece, saying, "It's all yours if you join us." obviously they'd have to think about it, but by accepting it, Italy screws over the Entente because of two reasons;
One, that's more ocean for their sea vessels to manage and if they tried to blockade at the passage between Gibraltar and NEUTAL Spanish Morrocco they could wind up getting Spain involved on the side of the Central Powers if things escalated from there.
Two, that's another front for France & Britain to manage which could spread their resources thinner than it was already at that point. If the Ottoman Empire still joins on the side of the Central Powers too that's further resources, they'll have to spread even thinner.
I was hoping you would react to this one. Great analysis as usual, Chris. I think the intent of the video was to critically evaluate popular alternate scenarios that require too many leaps in logic to be somewhat realistic. On the Rome inventing steam engines point, your scenario's pre-requisite was a Rome that survived hundreds of years longer than it did. In that case, it is absolutely realistic to expect them to invent steam power. Cody's point, though, didn't give Rome that sort of time; even if the empire survived longer than it did, it still may not have been enough to unlock steam power. You were both correct, but your parameters were different.
I'm with you 100% about the Operation Downfall point, though. It's easy to forget that, even though Japan was clearly on the terminal defensive, casualties were going up as the Allies got closer to the home islands. Battles were becoming more desperate & scrappy, resulting in ever-climbing civilian death tolls. Japanese authorities were teaching children how to make spears out of bamboo shafts, and broadcasting slogans about 100 million souls dying for Japan.
"But they were defeated! They were on their last legs!" Brother, Japan was defeated by January of 1944. You could argue Japan was defeated by June 7, 1942. Heck, you could even argue Japan's defeat was sealed by dusk December 7, 1941! That's how little a chance they had in a long term war, and they knew it, too. Even a novice officer could tell in 1945 that Japan's situation in the Pacific had become completely untenable. They dragged the war out far beyond any possible hope of receiving any reasonable consolation for their efforts, let alone victory. Japan was already defeated, but it didn't matter.
I would also add that the Japanese had kept the bulk of their Kamikazes in reserve to defend the home islands, which is why Kamikaze pilots had far better survivability rates than German U-Boat crews, this doesn't strike me as a sign Japan preparing to unconditionally surrender. They were putting serious effort towards a grueling and desperate fight on the home islands.
@@Edax_Royeaux Another very good point. And none of this is to imply that the Japanese people were stupid. They were just victims of the IJA's war tactics. From the beginning the IJA sought to fight a "war without mercy", taking few prisoners, treating the ones they had brutally, and fighting to the last man. They did this to disincentivize their own troops from giving up. The old "if we are this cruel to the prisoners we take, how cruel do you think the Allies will treat you?" sort of tactic. And for the Kamikaze pilots, the gov't basically said to these bright young men, "If you don't volunteer for this, we will force your friends to do it."
The Japanese people were not blindly fighting a war they thought they could win. They were embracing the doom that was closing in on them. To Japan, losing didn't mean giving up their land claims in the Pacific; losing meant apocalypse.
35:45 true! BUT, do keep in mind that long before 41, when the nazis were still at their peak, hitler was beyond hesitant to invade britain by sea. A significantly smaller and closer nation. Operation sea lion was shelved because it was deemed too costly, and blitzkrieg could not be utilized with boat style landings
32:46 To be alternate history, it has be similar enough to not just be a separate universe, all the events leading up to it had to be pretty similar but the events that happened changed to a few small but impactful changes.
Chris with alternate history you have to make it sorta realistic like if we have a scenario of nazi winning ww2 you gonna have change so much about them that they won’t even be Nazi anymore
Alexander wouldn’t be him if he invaded Rome and likewise Rome wouldn’t be Rome if they’re industrial
Regarding the Japanese surrender. Akira Kurisawa in his biography talked about getting married in preparation for the Emperors order for mass suicide to avoid the shame of occupation. So without the bombs their might not have been any Japan left.
it was never about "if" but "when" using the bombs
and most important "what else"
There's a Japanese light novel series called Modern Villainess built around an alternate history scenario where Japan waits a few more weeks before surrendering to the US...not long enough for Operation Downfall to kick in, but long enough for the Soviets to conquer Hokkaido and set up a Communist puppet state in Hokkaido + Sakhalin. This Communist regime falls apart at the end of the Cold War and gets reabsorbed into Japan proper just like East Germany got absorbed by the West. The novels really get into the weeds of Japanese economic history in the 1990s and 2000s.
Ciao Chris, ti devo dire la verità da tuo fan che non c’è possibilità che il governo italiano sarebbe mai entrato in guerra a fianco degli imperi centrali. semplicemente se vai a leggere i trattati diplomatici e discussioni all’interno del governo e del parlamento italiano tra re Vittorio Emanuele III, Giolitti e alti partecipanti nessuno ha mai considerato effettivamente discendere in guerra contro gli inglesi e i francesi e c’è sempre stata la possibilità di rimanere neutrali ma mai di entrare in guerra, mai
Ma infatti, il suo dire “ma erano alleati” non vale nulla, già nel 1905 avevamo firmato un trattato con la Francia di non aggressione
@@alessandrorosati820ed addirittura avevamo lasciato l’alleanza dopo l’annessione della Bosnia da parte dell’Austria
what if you stay neutral and the central powers are about to win, wouldnt your country jump in a few month before the entante falls to secure some land
@@chinesetaxevader The Central Powers could have never won.
Potential History has made an excellent video about the reasons Japan surrendered. Very thorough. Would recommend.
I'm just going to talk about the last one. Yes you could say the United States was a ocean away in the same sense that Germany and Japan were an ocean away and his reasons why they never really could threaten the US with invasion. The problem with your reaction on that was the US proved it could make amphibious landings in D-Day and other invasions. The US was a definite threat to Japan to invade them by sea. I think that was the point to get Stalin to invade from Manchuria to force Japan to fight on multiple fronts.
Look up how Texacco supplied Franco's rebel army with petroleum products and Ford supplied motor vehicles. Without fuel, the Condor Legion doesn't fly. Without trucks, troops move much more slowly. Having Roosevelt crack down is easy to picture.
With Alternate History, one needs to know the situation well enough to appreciate how changing the outcome could be possible. If you do not know what Woodrow Wilson did on foreign policy, understanding just how he was an idiot will be missed.
There are two Alternate History Hub videos that I would recommend reaction to: One is of Napoleon being able to invade the United Kingdom and the other is of Alexander Hamilton becoming President of the United States.
I'll add that any scenario involving an invasion of the United States taking place in the past 200 years is unrealistic for the reasons Cody mentioned. Germany and Japan were able to invade nearby countries (with Germany traveling by ground), but there would be no logical place for the Axis to stage an invasion like the Allies had with the UK unless they were also going to take Canada and/or Latin America.
Courtesy of the great war channel.
Italy and Austria were negotiating.
Austria was making concessions to keep Italy neutral.
Italy made a counter offer to join their side in the war
Austria declined it.
Seriously the only thing that would need to change for that one to happen is Austria to not be a dumbass and accept it. Yeah they'd lose some more land than they were willing to, but they'd gain an entire new ally as well as helping Germany so much because France suddenly had a whole new land border to fight for.
Italy would probably lose to a naval invasion similarly to ww2 but it might last long enough to make it worth it having them
0:22 I mean, personally, my interest in alternate history fueled my desire to understand normal history. Its so essential to have a firm grasp on what happened during and after the point of your divergence if you intend to tell a well grounded story that you end up becoming a semi-expert on key eras of history just for the sake of writing the tale. Its sort of like building a murder mystery- every piece you introduced in the story must be placed very carefully because your audience by its very nature will be scrutinizing every little detail.
VTH saying he will make is Arguments after he watched his Argument on the Italy one , but then decides to not make those Arguments ….. 😂
another thing I like about alternate history is that its a reminder that our timeline was not pre-ordained or guaranteed. Some people seem to think that way.
But outcomes can turn on the roll of a dice or the flap of a butterflywing.
11:42 Yeah no, that's definitely a valid point. Danelaw was a thing long enough for people to have grown up, had a family, die and have their children grow up to have families under Danish kings and lords. There's a good chance they might even be part-Dane themselves, lots of Danes and Anglo-Saxons were sure to have coupled back then.
Glad you did this video! I’m part of that discord server and it was so much fun taking part of this event (no, none of those scenarios are mine). I’ll send this to our admin so he can watch!
On #3 you also have to take into account that Harold Godwinson’s own brother was in the Viking army so if they were able to win at Stanford Bridge he might’ve been able to grease the wheels if you will, to secure the north pretty quickly. While William probably would’ve taken the south before Hardrada was ready to move on him it would’ve taken a lot longer for either side to take over all of England.
A short list of my own remarks (in no particular order) that I'll try to keep brief (would love to go into more details if people reply):
-The "Chinese discover America" scenario is based on the Ming Treasure Voyages, a real and colossal project undertaken in the early 1400s by the recently-installed Ming dynasty. They built these huge ships (made Colombus' boats look like canoes) and sent them out along trade routes as far as East Africa to collect tribute from states and peoples along the way. They were headed by Zheng He, Chinese Muslim eunuch, and they're honestly really cool, there's a great Kings and Generals video about them.
-Your point about a reverse timeline between Stamford Bridge and Hastings happening is a good one. However, in keeping with Cody's scenario, I don't think Hardrada would have more luck in northern England than William did (wasn't easy settling for Normans either). Just because a part of the people there had Scandinavian descent doesn't mean they'd instantly bow down to a Norwegian king.
-The Aztec Invasions scenario is based on a book by Laurent Binet called "Civilizations", in which alternate Norse voyages leave iron, steel and Old World diseases much earlier than in our timeline. As a result, the Incas this time have the technology and the immune system to go east.
Those treasure ships' size are probably grossly exaggerated. The histories claim they were between 440 and 538 feet in length, well the US built the six-masted schooner Wyoming in 1909 at a length of 450ft and discovered ships can't be built that long with wood because the extreme length will cause the hull flex, causing the long planks to twist and buckle in heavy seas and thereby allowing sea water to intrude into the hold. I've heard the counter-claim that the Chinese just know how to build blue water ships so much better than the Americans, but I don't really believe that.
I give guided tours of the Spanish civil war in Madrid. I generally defer to the historian Paul Preston who says that the only way the republicans had any chance of winning was that if Britain and France had lifted the non-intervention pact, which was a defacto embargo, banning the popular front from access to weapons and fuel markets, making them dependent entirely on what the Soviets sent, which wasn't enough. So they could have actually helped in this way without sending military aid and further stoking the tensions with Germany that they were afraid of.
Yes, the factionalism in the popular front was a big killer for them, but in my opinion supply problems doomed them from the start.
I think the reason AHH is so dismissive of rome industrialising is because the scenario suggested by his discord server is the idea that rome as we know it could've industrialised, whereas stating the idea that rome could have evolved these ideas necessary for industrialisation if it had survived collapse both isn't what the scenario is arguing and would be a fundamentally different rome than what we had.
And if you make it too different, you aren't talking about Rome.
I've made the same argument about Nazi Germany not invading the USSR. While possible, if it happens, you are talking about a history without Hitler. There is no way Hitler doesn't invade the Soviets due to his own beliefs. You change too much, you might as well invent a new power.
One of the most interesting what ifs for me is what if the sinking of the White Ship in 1120 never happens? Assuming William Adelin survives to inherit the throne from Henry and establishes his own dynastic line,then Stephen of Blois does not usurp the throne, there is no Anarchy, the Plantagenets never take over from Stephen. All subsequent English and British history takes a different path.
I don't know how common it is now, but a decade ago when cell phones were pretty much everywhere doctors were still carrying pagers. This was because pagers had much better signal coverage than cell phones. A doctor would get a page, then go to a spot with good signal strength to make his call.
History is dependent on the perceiver/researcher/student/teacher - that's several billion versions. I am literally watching history every night and if I type the "real story" (my experience) literally one or two folk MIGHT believe me. I experienced things, heard things, saw things as a child that people called me crazy for and a half century later became acceptable "truth". I'm 71 and my life has never been boring, not for a microsecond. L.A. is UAP Central. If you are in L.A. and want to wake up to a bit of Earth experience not included in your bubble then please contact me and I will "point with my finger" at something that you don't believe in. It's that simple.
Yes Soviet Union was bigger than the US, but they were also on a land border with Germany at the time of the invasion, they just needed to walk there. To get to the US you need thousands of ships making it harder. Plus, most people in the US were armed and many were even trained enough on the guns.
The reason I emphasize so hard that William is a Viking if not a French conqueror is because William was anything but English which many people think he was
another thing cody forgot with WW1 was that honor actually mattered, I could've definitely see italy at LEAST staying neutral if austria gave up Istria which would prevent another meat grinder front opening up, it was controversial even then that italy joined the allies and even then italy was still punished for it, their names were smeared and stained for ww1. A good reference on that is the fact that italy lost nearly half a million people on just that front alone, let alone the german's side which would free up an unmeasurable amount of manpower for other campaigns