The Rif War

One of the lesser known 20th century wars gets an Alternate History

Review: Sky People

A Polish Zero?

The Poles develop a fast, maneuverable fighter comparable to the Japanese Zero in the late 1930s.  

Point Of Divergence is an amateur press magazine and also a forum for discussing AH and AH-related ideas.  Here is my comment section.

A word of explanation: Scenario Seeds are little ideas I think might have some potential as future settings for an alternate history story.  I have no patent on these ideas, so if you take one and make a best seller out of it you don't even have to mention me in your acknowledgements (though it would be nice if you did).  This is me playing with ideas, and you are welcome to join me.  I was on a Napoleonic kick when I wrote this, and the majority of ideas deal with the Napoleonic era, but future scenario seeds may deal heavily with World War II, or the US Civil War, or whatever other war I feel like tossing out ideas for.

1. What if the Napoleon just grabbed some formerly Polish territory on the western fringe of Russia--say Vilnius and some formerly Polish territory in what is now the Ukraine, started expanding the Polish army, and waited for the Russians to come to him?  (Rather than going deep into Russia and having his army destroyed the Russian winter). With the destruction of the Grande Army in Russia, a lot of French Allied forces were destroyed too, including a fairly formidable Polish army, as well as the armies of several minor German and Italian states allied with France.

2. What if Napoleon had built steamboats instead of dismissing them as a waste of money and effort? Would the steamboats that were possible at a early 1800's technology level have been militarily useful?  Would Napoleon's France have been able to build them in larger numbers than Britain did?  Would they have made a French invasion of England possible?

3) What if Napoleon had totally dismembered Prussia after defeating the Prussians and stripping Prussia down to a relatively small remnant?  The Prussians were secretly circumventing the limits of the initial treaty.  Napoleon could have used that as an excuse for a second parition of Prussia, with the rump Poland that he had created getting pieces, and maybe Austria and some of the other nearby German states getitng a cut as well.

4) What if Napoleon had not dismantled the Holy Roman Empire?  Assuming that Napolean eventually falls from power, how long does the Holy Roman Empire remain as a theoretical structure?

5) What if the infant US had gone after England earlier, while it was more deeply involved in the Napoleonic wars?  Make it the war of 1809 or 1810 instead of the war of 1812.  Would the US do better?  Would this have any significant impact on the Napoleonic wars?  Would Napoleon have tried to stir up a French revolt in Canada to help his newfound ally?

6) Here is one especially for my friend David, who is into trains and trolleys: One of Napoleon's major problems in taking on England was that England controlled the seas, and the seas were the most economical way of moving goods around.  Napoleon had a huge incentive to come up with an alternative way of moving goods.  What would it have taken for him to try building a railroad system?  How much new technology would have to become available and how might that have happened?  What would the resulting system look like? How effective could it be?  What impact would it have on the Napoleonic wars?

7) What would it have taken to get the Industrial Revolution going in England two or three decades earlier--say before the American Revolution?  What would the impact of that be?

8) What would it take to delay the Industrial Revolution a couple of decades?  What would the impact of that have been?  No or a lot fewer railroads by the time of the Civil War?  A smaller edge to the North from their industrial might?  Would the Civil War have happened reasonably on time and with the same general configuration?

9) What if Napoleon hadn't gotten involved in Spain beyond having the Spanish as minor Allies?  What would happen in South America? 

10) What would have happened if Napoleon had taken over only one of the Iberian powers-Portugal or Spain but not both?  Would Brazil remain with Portugal while the Spanish colonies became independent?  Would the Spanish colonies remain Spanish while Brazil became independent?  How long would that last, and what would the impact be?

11) What if the US had emerged from the American Revolution as a much smaller country?  As the British, French, and Spanish negotiated to end the war, historically the British actually pushed for the colonies to be given more territory in the area between the Appalachians and the Mississippi than French and Spanish wanted them to have.  That was a way at getting back at European rivals who had taken advantage of British preoccupation with the colonial rebellion, but it did throw the door open to the initial US expansion.  What if the British and the other European powers had decided to lay aside their differences and divide a major part of that territory among themselves.  The British could keep the old northwest, while the Spanish got to extend Louisianna east to pretty much the current limit of colonial settlements.  The British might also keep Florida--at least the Peninsula--in exchange for letting the Spanish expand their territory to the east.  What happens then?  Does the US eventually expand west anyway?  Are the British pulled into a prolonged series of hot and cold wars with the US over the extra British territory?

12) What if the European powers and the colonies were not able to reach an agreement on the western boundaries, and as a result they designate large parts of the area between the Appalachians and the Mississippi as Indian territory--a kind of internationally guaranteed buffer zone between the powers?  That idea was apparently actually floated at some point in the negotiations.  I've seen a map where the proposed territory was laid out, though I can't lay my hands on it at the moment.  How would that play out?  A line on the map would not stop settlement of the territories, but the settlers would not be able to openly call on their countrymen to help them if they got into a war with the Indians.  The illegal nature of the settlements might also attract a less savory type of settler in addition to the families looking to get ahead.  Indian territories could get to be very wild places--good settings for stories.

13) What if the US actually did go ahead with the 1000 or more nuclear reactors that were being planned in the 70's?  To get there you would have to eliminate the two highly publicized nuclear accidents (TMI and Chernobyl).  You would also have to get ecologists off your back.  Maybe better climate models showing global warming would sway opinions toward nukes as a way of getting away from coal.  In any case, what happens then?  How would the world be different than it currently is?

14) What would it take to keep Pancho Villa the dominant force in northern Mexico through at least the mid-1930's and what would the consequences of that be?

Comments on these ideas are very welcome, and feel free to post your own ideas as articles or comments. 

Revised version Posted on Feb 3, 2012.

More Stuff For POD Members Only

What you see here is a truncated on-line version of a larger zine that I contribute to POD, the alternate history APA.  POD members get to look forward to more fun stuff.