Absurdity in the counterfactual is still oddly valuable

Suppose Frederick defied his father and escaped to France instead of being captured at the border of Prussia, one can safely say the 7 years war would not have happen. Britain would not have captured Canada and huge swathes of Indian territory in that conflict. The Mughal empire would have gotten many more years of respite since it had grown quite apt at playing the British and the French against each other for much of the earlier 18th century. India was certainly in greater danger of colonisation after the War since the East India Company was now the sole and unopposed colonial force in the sub-continent. Indeed, similarly, had India not become so great a concern for Britain, trade with China wouldn't have taken on so vast a significance and perhaps the opium war might have be delayed just long enough for the Chinese Army to modernise. If Britain had not gotten so firm a grip on India and thus trade with China, I wonder if Singapore would ever have been? We could have been Portuguese, Spanish or French.

Had the British and Prussians not win so resounding a victory in the 7 year conflict in Europe, the British wouldn't have indebted the treasury quite so heavily and pushed it to enact a tax on its American colonies, which would have prevented the rowdy Americans from rebellion in 1776 and the geopolitical environment of America as we know it today would have been significantly different. Had France not lost the 7 years War, it probably wouldn't have sought for revenge in the same War of 1776 by allying itself with the Americans against the British. The resultant debt that the Bourbon French incurred was a debt so heavy that it had little choice but to revert to the ancient council of the notables and the Estates General which sparked off the French revolution. In fact if the 7 years war hadn't happen, France might not have intervene as willingly and the colonies would have lost, which did not happen and as history would have it, the idea of a constitutional American republic with enlightened ideas inspired the French to revolution in 1789. Had the French revolution of 1789 not occur, the ideas of nationalism and liberty would have ingloriously incubated in the books of the philosophers.

Without the French Revolution, Thomas Jefferson, then president of 13 colonies of America could not have secured the Louisiana purchase- 828000 square miles of territory, approximately the size of 11 states of the United States of America at a discounted price from Napoleon in 1803. Arguably, this single purchase, empowered an otherwise flimsy and nascent coastal empire toward greatness and superpower status. Had she not garnered these lands from the French, one shudders to think about the outcomes of the cold war.

Of course, had the french revolution not happen, what should one make of the writings of Karl Marx! since Europe's social and political upheavals of 1848 would be a dream within a dream. Without the examples of 18th century revolutions and the ideas of nationalism, Karl Marx could never have drawn inspiration for the communist manifesto and Des Capita and he would have been some ignominous teacher in the german provinces. The Russian Revolution would probably have slept in the possibilities of the improbable. The peasants could have revolted but it was more likely that a new tsarist dynasty would have emerged rather than a communist one. The cold war, if it ever happened, could only be vastly different from the one that ended in 1991; a competition between two monarchies and their empires rather than two competing systems of government and economic systems.

The age of ideology began with the French revolution of 1789 and had it petered out, as could have been the case, the Chinese Monarchy would have remained - frail but alive and possibility a new dynasty would have emerged with the same governing system and philosophy but probably a different family in charge. Absolutism and the mandate from heaven would ever and only be the sine qua non of Chinese civilisation. Sun Yet Sen would still be a doctor who lived happily in Hongkong with a decent paying job.

How the world has changed, simply because a precocious child made good after being forcibly returned to his Prussian father in the then insignificant state of Prussia. Indeed, one could say that I'd taken things too far, by over emphasizing causality and since history cannot repeat itself, I cannot be proven otherwise. Yet there is value in the counter factual, for like in a game of chess, one could have asked what would have happened if i had chosen to move another piece instead of this, and from this counter factual point, learn the significance of this move that I'd made. How indeed, the whole world of politics and ideas has changed because a young man failed in his escape! Yet it is not about that young man, it is about the fragility of the past. It is about how man cannot see beyond his own hand and how he cannot control the consequences of his choices.

By pushing the boundaries of the absurd, I'm saying that even the grotesquely nonsensical is oddly valuable for historical pedagogy. Imagine our lives being written in this manner. Some might try to push this argument back to free will and predestination, i think that would be missing the point utterly. The point is to say that in the many permutations and combinations of historical possibilities, should not man say that even with the power of choice, he cannot even fathom the vast consequences of a single instinctive action. Man is not in control of his own destiny. He is played as much as he is a player.

History, oh history, the study of accidents, intertwined and humorously conjoined.