If it had happened otherwise

Many years ago – whilst I was still at school – I came across a copy of IF IT HAD HAPPENED OTHERWISE in the school library. It was a collection of alternative or counter-factual history essays written by a number of leading historians, and it was published in 1931. It was my first proper introduction to the genre, and I have had an avid interest in alternative or counter-factual history ever since.

The original book contained the following essays:

• If Drouet's Cart Had Stuck by Hilaire Belloc
• If Don John of Austria Had Married Mary Queen of Scots by G K Chesterton
• If Lee Had NOT Won the Battle of Gettysburg by Winston Churchill
• If Napoleon Had Escaped to America by H A L Fisher
• If the Moors in Spain Had Won by Philip Guedalla
• If the General Strike Had Succeeded by Ronald Knox
• If the Emperor Frederick Had Not Had Cancer by Emil Ludwig
• If Louis XVI Had Had an Atom of Firmness by André Maurois
• If Byron Had Become King of Greece by Harold Nicolson
• If It Had Been Discovered in 1930 that Bacon Really Did Write Shakespeare by J C Squire
• If Booth Had Missed Lincoln by Milton Waldman

I understand that an American edition of the book entitled IF: OR, HISTORY REWRITTEN was also published in 1931. It did not include the essay about the General Strike but did include three additional essays:

• If the Dutch Had Kept Nieuw Amsterdam by Hendrik Willem van Loon
• If: A Jacobite Fantasy by Charles Petrie
• If Napoleon Had Won the Battle of Waterloo by G M Trevelyan

I bought a paperback re-print of the original book some years ago, and during a recent sort out I found it again. On re-reading it I was struck by how much I still enjoyed Churchill’s and Fisher’s contributions, and that they could easily form the basis for future wargame campaigns.