Alternative History due to WW1

[Bruce Tuncks]

Just suppose prime minister Ned Kelly told the poms to stick their stupid war in 1914. Then after much investigation, Australia decides that the Germans were less bad than the poms but not good enough to join with.

This would have shaken the poms enjoyment of their war and so they made peace when the germans sought it in 1915. This left no role for Hitler and Stalin to exploit to gain power so WW2 never happened.

[Yenn]

And also lets suppose that William never fought the battle at Hastings. That resulted in England being a run down collection of country yokels and India never became part of an empire. They never got any railways so all travel was on foot. They never developed any industry, so Australia cannot sell them coal and is now a bankrupt colony of Portugal perhaps.

[pmccarthy]

But the monkeys, elephants and rhinos would all be better off.

[Bruce Tuncks]

ok guys. I get the point. You can't change the past. Gosh I'd be in trouble if I went back in time and molested the schoolgirls.

[old man emu]

You'd be as out of luck with the schoolgirls if you went back now as you were when you were a schoolboy.

[Old Koreelah]

I once used this device with a top history class; how would history have been different if Zheng He had sailed his great fleet of massive ships up the English Channel?

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zheng_He

[old man emu]

Owain Glyndŵr was declared Prince of Wales on 16 September 1400. He was the leader of the most serious and widespread rebellion against England authority in Wales since the conquest of 1282–1283. In 1405, the French allied with Glyndŵr and the Castilians in Spain; a Franco-Welsh army advanced as far as Worcester, while the Spaniards used galleys to raid and burn all the way from Cornwall to Southampton, before taking refuge in Harfleur for the winter. England confronted repeated raids by pirates that damaged trade and the navy. There is some evidence that Henry IV used state-legalised piracy as a form of warfare in the English Channel. He used such privateering campaigns to pressure enemies without risking open war. The French responded in kind and French pirates, under Scottish protection, raided many English coastal towns.

 

So with such a massive fleet, Zheng He would have really thrown the cat amongst the pigeons. The English and French were snarling at each other, although domestic and dynastic difficulties faced by England and France in this period quieted the war for a decade. The appearance of such a massive fleet would have been to the English and French like the arrival of Martians in New Jersey in 1938.

[willedoo]

I once used this device with a top history class; how would history have been different if Zheng He had sailed his great fleet of massive ships up the English Channel?

As it turned out, he didn't have the balls to do it.

[Yenn]

With a narrow channel and the prevailing wind from the West, anybody would have trouble fighting the English or French. It would have been very hard for any vessel to turn and travel against the wind. That was what caused the Spanish to lose so many of their fleet. They couldn't go West through the English Channel, so had to go round Scotland to get home, then they got set onto the coast of Ireland by the prevailing currents and their lack of charted knowledge.

[Marty_d]

Funny when you think of it, battle between ships powered only by sail. Must be like dogfighting with gliders.

[facthunter]

When YOUR thermal gets invaded by about 3 others that's just what it's like. It's when men were men, so the story goes. They"took the wind out of other's sails". Nev

[willedoo]

Funny when you think of it, battle between ships powered only by sail. Must be like dogfighting with gliders.

One of the Hornblower books gives an excellent description of it (ships, not gliders). From memory, it might be the first book where Hornblower was a Lieutenant on a ship of the line. There's a whole chapter describing the act of going about to fire a broadside at the enemy, and the firing of it. The logistics involved are quite mind boggling; well worth reading.

Edited May 2, 2020 by Guest

[willedoo]

75 years today since the fall of Berlin.

 

[facthunter]

Took a few more months for the JAPAN war to end. I remember that occasion. ALL the trains in Newcastle started tooting their whistles and kept it up for ages and we got a 1/2 day off school. Nev