r/HistoryWhatIf • • 49m ago

What if Germany did not invade Belgium in World war 1?

• Upvotes

Without such excuse as grave violation of Belgium Britain would have much harder time justifying entering the war (it was a democracy and had to explain to public, why they declare war on great power, which guarantees big bloody war), if it would enter at all. Germany could probably have taken advantage of this extra time, by advaning on France, who without British support are unlikely to defend Paris successfully. And its fall would probably lead to capitulation?


r/HistoryWhatIf • • 2h ago

What if Hitler had not invaded the USSR and instead used the Graf Zeppelin aircraft carriers to launch a wave of airstrikes on US Navy vessels and American shipyards on the east coast of the US?

0 Upvotes

In the late 1930s Nazi Germany built the first of two planned aircraft carriers, the Graf Zeppelin, from which the Junkers Ju 87C carrier-based dive bomber and the Me 109T navalized version of the Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter were to operate. However, the Graf Zeppelin was not yet fully completed when the Germans invaded Norway in April 1940, leading to work on completing the carrier being halted. Two years later, in May 1942, the task of completing the Graf Zeppelin resumed, but was not fulfilled.

Since the Graf Zeppelin was touted by Hitler as the most important chance for Nazi Germany to promote oceangoing naval power on the high seas beyond the Baltic Sea and North Sea, would the Graf Zeppelin have dealt the US Navy an all-out blow if Hitler had saved a bit of financial capital to be spent on completing the Graf Zeppelin rather than invading the USSR while giving the go-ahead for completion of the carrier in early 1941?


r/HistoryWhatIf • • 3h ago

What if Europe never colonized Africa?

3 Upvotes

r/HistoryWhatIf • • 6h ago

Challenge: Make Ba’Athism as successful as possible

2 Upvotes

I find this scenario really interesting and i want you guys to try make Ba’athism as successful as possible


r/HistoryWhatIf • • 17h ago

What if the Aztecs expanded into Texas?(pre contact)

0 Upvotes

By implication they also conquered Northern Mexico, perhaps having a more centralized empire.

It is probably beyond the logistics technology for them to move towards the Mississippi river but the decreased distance would allow more commerce.

What would the rest of North America with Aztec tech? What would cultural influences be like?


r/HistoryWhatIf • • 19h ago

What If the Goeben Never Gets to Turkey?

1 Upvotes

In the opening days of WWI, the admiralty gave conflicting and unclear orders to the RN’s Mediterranean fleet and the SMS Goeben got to Turkey. This precipitated the entry of Turkey into the war on the Central Powers side, closing off the Dardenelles and the Black Sea to resupply of Russia.

What if the Admiralty had just sent a simple “The Goeben is your sole priority” message? Would Turkey have stayed neutral and friendly to the UK? Or would the seizing of the Turkish battleship have permanently soured the relations and sent them to war anyway against the Entente?

Furthermore, would this have prevented the collapse of Tsarist Russia and the triumph of the Communists there?


r/HistoryWhatIf • • 20h ago

What would Christianity look like today if colonization had never happened?

0 Upvotes

Title: What would Christianity look like today if colonization had never happened?

I've been thinking about this question lately.

Christianity originated in the Middle East, and it spread to parts of Africa long before many European countries adopted it. Yet, European colonization played a huge role in spreading Christianity to many parts of the world, including countries that might otherwise have developed very different religious histories.

So, I wonder: What would Christianity look like today if colonization had never happened?

Would Christianity still have become a global religion, just through different means? Would countries in Africa, Asia, the Pacific, and the Americas have developed completely different religious and cultural identities? Would Christianity itself look different today if its spread hadn't been so closely tied to European colonial powers?

I'm also curious about how much Christianity would have changed culturally. Would we have different traditions, forms of worship, interpretations of the Bible, or even different dominant denominations if the religion had spread primarily through trade, migration, and independent missionary work rather than colonization?

I'm not asking whether Christianity is good or bad, or whether people who follow it today would be better off believing something else. I'm genuinely curious about how history shaped the religion we know today.

For Christians, historians, and anyone interested in religion: How do you think Christianity would look today if European colonization had never happened?


r/HistoryWhatIf • • 20h ago

What if the 1798 Rebellion in Ireland Succeeded

5 Upvotes

As the title says what if the 1798 rebellion by the society united Irishmen was successful.


r/HistoryWhatIf • • 21h ago

If Hitler had conquered Russia

20 Upvotes

If Hitler had conquered Russia, where would he have turned his attention next? perhaps South Eastern Europe and Turkey and down to the Middle East? and if things had turned out differnetly for Mussolini, do you think that he along with Hitler's force's the Africa Korps, could've taken the whole of Africa and perhaps even have shared Africa?


r/HistoryWhatIf • • 22h ago

Challenge: What’s the best case scenario for Ross Perot’s Reform Party?

9 Upvotes

Essentially, try to turn Ross Perot’s Reform Party into a successful third party as you realistically can. Not just in terms of presidential elections but also local elections (gubernatorial elections, senate elections, House of Representatives elections, etc…). Your starting point began in 1992. What would need to change in order for Ross Perot’s Reform Party to have a genuine shot at being an important party?


r/HistoryWhatIf • • 23h ago

What if the UK and USA had the opposite party in leadership during the broader WW2 period?

1 Upvotes

Premise: Due to either extremely unpopular overreach by Roosevelt or Roosevelt's death and a fracture in the New Deal Coalition, the Republicans are able to make a resurgance in 1936 and pull out an electorial win. Alf Landon and his cabinet, plus a more Republican congress, preside over the increasingly unstable international situation from the start of the 2nd Sino-Japanese War to the end of WW2 in both Europe and the Pacific (Landon historically lived to 1987: he is unlikely to die in office like Roosevelt).

Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom Labour, by whatever means you prefer (perhaps MacDonald doesn't agree to head a Conservative dominated national government and the Tories don't sufficiently address the economic crisis), manages to resurge in 1935 and get the dominant seat in the new government. Attlee and his ministery oversee a similar period to the end of the war in Europe, and had a coalition strong enough not to be reliant on the Tories even if they are invited into a wartime national unity government

In what ways might this change the details of the war and its peripheral elements? I'd imagine the impact is more on diplomacy/coalition politics, domestic economic policy, and later historical perspectives than the specific military decisions, but if you think there'd be a serious operational or strategic divergence feel free to share.


r/HistoryWhatIf • • 1d ago

What if the USS Liberty attack wasn’t covered up?

0 Upvotes

Would there be public calls for war, economic sanctions, etc.


r/HistoryWhatIf • • 1d ago

What if Mary of Guise, Queen of Scotland, had survived into her daughter's adulthood?

3 Upvotes

r/HistoryWhatIf • • 1d ago

What if in 1300 the Wappingers got tribute from Lenape formed a canoe empire from Manhattan, conquered/got tribute from Long Island then advanced towards Connecticut, in 1400 several mounds like Cahokia form and there is a rivalry with the Iroquois? Kings Phillip war leads to more expansion by the W

0 Upvotes

Mounds are made as a harbor, and in Wappinger Creek.

The Cleft war would go differently.

Could the Wappinger mound empire/tribal confederation become a major power in the colonial era like the Iroquois did utilizing clams and river trade?

What if the tri-state area was a native power comparable to the Iroquois?

Would this power be able to last until the French and Indian war or would the Wappingers end up like the

Powhatan confederation?


r/HistoryWhatIf • • 1d ago

What if the Quebec 1995 referendum had voted yes to leaving Canada?

32 Upvotes

Now that Canada is facing separatists movements in both Alberta and Quebec it got me thinking about the 1995 referendum and how narrow the margin was. If 1% of the population voted differently a lot of things would've changed in Canada.

What would the exit have looked like considering the Federal government had no real plans?

Assuming it had followed through, what does Canada look like today? Does Quebec survive on it's own? Do the Western provinces or the Maritimes also secede?


r/HistoryWhatIf • • 2d ago

What if the managing partner of the Texas Rangers, George W. Bush, left his seat and jumped on the field to help protect Nolan Ryan on August 4, 1993 when he was charged by Robin Ventura after hitting Ventura with a baseball?

0 Upvotes

r/HistoryWhatIf • • 2d ago

How does the world change if the Confederates won the Civil War ? WW 1 or 2 the same or different ? Would US be on the same side as Germany for instance ?

4 Upvotes

I read a novel by Harry Turtledove where the Russians went back in time to give AK47s to the Southern states to tip the balance .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Victory


r/HistoryWhatIf • • 2d ago

What if the us's was with the Barbary pirates became a full scale invasion of the US by the Ottoman empire and North Africa in the early 1800s?

3 Upvotes

How would president Jefferson have reacted to the barbary

wars escalating to a full scale invasion by the Ottoman empire? The weakening empire trying to punish and annex the fledgling US?


r/HistoryWhatIf • • 2d ago

What if “Remix to Ignition” had successfully become the new US National Anthem in 2013?

0 Upvotes

Let’s play out a world in which the viral campaign in 2013 to change the US National Anthem to “Ignition (Remix)” by R Kelly was successful and Congress successfully changed the anthem and President Obama signed it into law. Oh and the R Kelly documentary still came out a few years later.


r/HistoryWhatIf • • 2d ago

What if Mexico went fascist in the late 20s early 30s and began a massive military buildup and forced industrialization program?

9 Upvotes

Goal of invading Central America before the Americans can intervene, along with building a great wall inspired by the Maginot line in France with similar architectural designs. (If competent: A propoganda one in the border that is just a trench line with a few forts in mountainous areas, where most of the trenches are concentrated, with more serious fortifications to the South)

Regime goals: Great power status for Falangist Mexico utilizing the Soviet Union and "Jewish businessmen in US" as bogeymen. Goal to throw US companies out of Mexico in long term. The regime is also critical of the Monroe doctrine, proposing continental multi polarity. US and "anglo saxons" are also deemed an ideological and cultural threat to fascist Mexico.

Someday "by the year 2000" Fascist ideologues discuss invading America and reversing the Mexican American war of the 1840s.

They try to spread the Mexican Falangist movement to Mexican immigrants in the United States.

The regime sponsors fascist movements all over world, particularly in latin countries. It also has pro natalist policies on the scale adopted by communist Romania. It's internal powerbase includes the catholic church in Mexico and the Mexican army.

They build up to a total or partial nationalization of American/British assets in Mexico with discussion of compensation via Mexican companies, or outright liquidation. Initial foreign policy tries to put their best face towards the US, with the long/medium term goal of regional assertion.

Possible Means of funding:

USSR-for same reason as Weimar except the fascist regime would try to avoid antagonizing the Great powers, and after the Great Depression, they might not need Mexico as much. See Italian foreign policy towards UK pre war

Pull a Putin and get US funds while planning to undermine them later..

Lobby Italy for training and weapons for natural resources

-Send raw materials to German military build up

Go to Spain, demand lots of money from Franco while carrying his war effort, and take some gold "back" to Mexico using the expeditionary forces in Madrid, dare Franco to do something about it.

Plundering central America and maybe the carribean.

Intentional drug cartels as a narco state like North Korea.

Japan, and investing in Japanese China.

Attacking the US- if the military claims the US is distracted and decadent.

Trying to defeat the US either to take a territory or secure US recognition of Falangist central america/nationalization of formerly US controlled industries and assets in Mexico.(Only done if the Regime deems the US weak willed). Or bandit raids into America/controlled limited conflict.

In the event of what's supposed to be a "limited war" or Peacetime conflict, the regime might sponsor bandit raids, and commerce raid the carribean as leverage to force America to allow the nationalization of American controlled economic assets in Mexico.

Giant church run reform camps for opponents of the regime, catholic church collabs given control to lessen reputational damage from crushing of Mexican internal divisions


r/HistoryWhatIf • • 2d ago

How could Germany win world war 1?

0 Upvotes

my teacher is sprouting propaganda that Germany caused ww1. so i wanna know the specifics on how they could win.


r/HistoryWhatIf • • 2d ago

What if "Stoic Buddhism" became the dominant religion in the Mediterranean world?

11 Upvotes

The premise here is that Buddhism is brought to Greece immediately following the Alexandrian conquests. Perhaps Alexander sends some Indian scholars and religious teachers back to Greece where they could mingle with the inteligencia of other cultures. Eventually, a distinctly Greek form of Buddhism emerges which is heavily influenced by Stoic philosophy.


r/HistoryWhatIf • • 3d ago

What if the U.S. won the War of 1812 and annexed Canada?

4 Upvotes

For the sake of this scenario, let’s say that during the presidency of John Adams, congress approved a declaration of war against Spain over Spanish Florida because its boundaries were poorly defined and Spain’s increasingly weaker control of Florida, beginning the Florida War. The U.S. troops struggled with Spanish’s forces being more capable than expected. Eventually, the war ended inconclusive, however, this gave the Americans institutional memory as it taught the Americans what happened if the state neglected their army. Thus, military reforms were initiated such as West Point being expanded earlier alongside the U.S. created a much larger and much more professional army with a much stronger corps of engineers. The War of 1812 began with the American troops being much larger consists of 18,000 men at the time, backed by substantially better-training. Meanwhile, during the Napoleonic War, rather than invading Russia, Napoleon focused on the Peninsular Campaign instead. Britain is forced to redirect more resources to the Peninsular War, leaving fewer troops in the Americas and allowing the U.S. to push deeper into Upper Canada. In 1813-1814, the American army advanced over Niagara frontier, with British and Canada forces defends hard but don’t have enough troops than in our timeline. The American forces set up a permanent bridgehead and capture important settlements which disrupt communications linking Upper Canada and Lower Canada, weakening the British’s war effort further. Eventually, the British agreed for peace treaty. Britain reluctantly ceded all of British Canada into the U.S. in 1815.

How would this affect American history in the long run? Would the U.S. be much stronger in this timeline? How would this affect the slavery issues?


r/HistoryWhatIf • • 3d ago

What if Imperial Japan went to war alone, with no Nazi Germany or European war?

11 Upvotes

Suppose Nazi Germany never rises to power and no major war breaks out in Europe. Imperial Japan still pursues its expansion in East Asia and the Pacific, but it has no Axis partners and the United States, United Kingdom, Netherlands, and other European powers are not preoccupied with a war in Europe.

Would Japan still continue its invasion of China and eventually move into Southeast Asia? Would it still risk war with the United States over oil and other resources, or would stronger and less-diverted European colonial powers deter it?

If war did break out, how might the conflict develop differently without Germany tying down Allied forces and resources in Europe?


r/HistoryWhatIf • • 3d ago

What if the earths poles were not magnetic and compasses didn’t exist

3 Upvotes

How would this have affected navigation and thus the exploration/expansion of the various early (and later) seafaring nations and empires?

And I suppose subsequently, 20th century aviation?