Serendipity in history

If engels had not met marx the world would be very different that sort of thing ?

I think you could to this to infinity, it sounds like a very generalised 'What If-ery' and I am not sure how useful that is.

Two obvious ones come to mind, the bad weather that decimated the Spanish Armada in 1588, and the bad weather that once again protected Britain by preventing the planned German invasion in 1940 - "Operation Sealion". We could all be speaking Spanish or German today, take your pick.

Judgement Day wrote: »

As for the Spanish Armada, I accept that most of the damage was done after the fleet were forced to flee north via Scotland but again the weather had had an impact early on in the engagements. I can't find a link right now but will post when I find something.

You're not thinking of Sir francis Drake finishing his game of Bowls on Plymouth Hoe even though the Armada was sighted are you?

Legend has it that he finished his game, quite relaxed, knowing full well that there was nothing the English fleet could do, having the tide and wind against them.

If the Spanish had attacked then, rather than heading for the Isle of Wight, they could have destroyed the English fleet at anchor.

There is also the favourable wind the English had at Gravelines, which allowed them to use fire ships and scatter the Armada.

Not so sure about the German invasion though. It was planned, but i don't think they ever amassed the troops required for an invasion, so even though the weather was not favourable, they probably wouldn't have gone ahead anyway.

Taking the 'what if' scenario a bit further it often occurs to me when researching the 1798 rebellion, one of my pet interests, what if there had been mobile phones back then? The outcome could have been very different with better communications between the different rebel contingents. A more general outbreak of hostilities on the same date might well have overwhelmed the Crown forces and we could all be speaking French today.
On a different tack, mobile phones being about at the time of the Titantic's sinking might well have led to the S.S. Californian (the ship that apparently ignored the distress flares) steaming to the rescue in time to save most if not all of Titanic's passengers and crew. It took the Titanic two hours and forty minutes to sink and the Californian was estimated to be about ten miles away when the flares were first fired.

Liberalbrehon wrote: »

Is using modern technology taking the what if to far? If the Irish had mobile phones so would the British forces have had. The thing is the '78 rebellion was doomed from the start. You cannot overthrow a foreign power through unorganised farmers with Pikes. You need a trained army or miltia forces around the country with a common goal. A few hundred farmers with pikes was a pointless exercise. It would never have succeeded. The closest there was to a chance was the army of Red Hugh O'Donnell but it wasn't to be. Only till Collins perfected the guerilla and intelligence lead war did it have a chance because the establishment was being attacked rather than poor conscripts in a field.

It may well be pushing the boundaries out a bit too far but the 1798 rebellion was about far more than a few hundred poorly armed pikemen. During the course of the rebellion many thousands of rebels took to the field but all at different times whereas a well co-ordinated rising would have overwhelmed the Crown forces and if the French had arrived in June instead of August events might have taken a very different turn. If the Wexford rebels had pressed on with their push towards Dublin on the 5th of June instead of waiting until the 9th by which time the Crown forces had regrouped and had got well dug in at Arklow....if the communications between the New Ross rebels and those in Enniscorthy/Arklow had been better...If the communications between the New Ross rebels and those in Kilkenny had been better the Crown forces in New Ross could have been trapped at New Ross bridge. Admittedly the Crown forces would also have had mobile phones but this would have had minimal effect as they were still hampered by having less men on the ground.

However, while it is interesting to speculate on what might have happened if, the fact remains that technology mocks previous endeavours.

I do agree with you that Britain would never have willingly let Ireland break free in 1798, especially after the American debacle, but a lot would have depended on how the French commitment shaped up. What if Nelson had been defeated by the French at the Battle of the Nile on the 1st/2nd August 1798 instead of the other way round?

Funny, yet again, while checking on some facts about the Battle of Britain to reply to Fratton Fred I stumbled over another bizarre piece of history; an incident in September 1940 involving the downing of a German plane led to the last military action against foreign forces on the British mainland and the first such incident in nearly 300 years. Have a read of this, amusing now seen from a safe distance but probably wasn't so damn funny if somebody was shooting at you with a machine gun.

http://www.kentonline.co.uk/kentonline/news/2009/september/30/battle_of_graveney.aspx

Forgotten frontline exhibition tells how Luftwaffe fought with soldiers on Kent marshes

by Ron Green and Mark Harrison

The Luftwaffe bomber was in trouble. It had dropped its 4,000lb cargo of bombs over London and was heading home. As it flew over Kent it was hit by anti-aircraft fire from a gun emplacement beside the Medway at Upnor.

Then pursuing Spitfires and Hurricanes pounced – but for once they didn’t seek to blow the enemy plane from the sky. The pilots from 66 and 92 squadrons recognised that this was no ordinary Junkers bomber. Earlier an order had gone out to all units to capture one like it, intact.

The bomber pilot, Fritz Ruhlandt, was given no choice but to attempt a forced landing on the Kent marshes. On the ground, soldiers from the 1st London Irish Rifles billeted at the Sportsman Inn on Graveney Marshes between Faversham and Seasalter heard the crippled bomber as it plunged towards them.

Under-offizier Ruhlandt, despite being wounded, brought down his plane a few hundred yards from the pub. He and his injured crew members crawled from the wreckage. A dozen or so soldiers in the pub grabbed their rifles and rushed towards the scene.

And so, on September 27, 1940, the scene was set for an historic encounter of the Second World War.

The Luftwaffe crew had armed themselves with two machine guns and a sub-machine gun and opened fire. The soldiers returned fire but were forced to take cover under a hail of bullets.

It was the only battle of the Second World War on the British mainland and the incident was thought to be the first in nearly 300 years in which armed invaders had fought with troops on English soil. The dtramatic incident is featured in The Forgotten Frontline, an exhibition at Whitstable Museum illustrating how the Kent coast was affected by the war seven decades ago.

The Irish rifles re-grouped and crept along a dyke towards the Germans. When they were about 100 yards away one of the airmen waved a white flag but as the soldiers closed in fighting erupted again before the Germans were over-powered.

The drama didn’t end with the surrender of the aircrew. Like many Nazi planes, the Junkers 88 was fitted with time-bombs to prevent it falling into enemy hands.

The soldiers had discovered and removed just such a device. Unknown to the prisoners, one of the soldiers could speak German and he heard the fliers talking about a second time-bomb due to go off at any moment.

Captain Cantopher from the Irish Rifles courageously rushed back to the plane, found the second device and defused it in the nick of time. By doing so he helped the war effort – for the Junkers 88 was only two weeks old and was fitted with a secret and extremely accurate new bombsight.

The outcome

Captain Cantopher received the George Medal for his bravery. The Junkers 88 was taken to RAF Farnborough for examination and was said to have provided highly valuable information.

The Luftwaffe air crew went to prisoner-of-war camps. The riflemen were mentioned in dispatches for tactical ability which enabled them to force the surrender of the heavily-armed Luftwaffe crew. Unofficially, however, it is said the riflemen had their knuckles rapped for opening fire without being ordered to do so.

Historic note

The Battle of Graveney Marsh has the distinction of being the last exchange of shots on mainland Britain by a foreign invading force. The encounter was believed to be the first confrontation with an enemy on British soil since the French landed at Fishguard in 1797, although on that occasion not a shot was fired.

The Highwayman wrote: »

If Dermot MacMurrough had fought his own battles?

I think there are lots of incidents like that in Irish history.

What if the 1916 leaders hadn't issued their proclamation using the phrase "Their Gallant Allies in Europe". Would they have still been executed? if not, would the war of independance had teh support it ended up with?

What if the Irish confederates hadn't signed an agreement with the Englsih Royalists? would Cromwell have invaded (Probably not)?

What if the Earls hadn't fled? or if they hadn't changed sides too many times?

What if Charles Stewart Parnell had not met kitty O'Shea?

Liberalbrehon wrote: »

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/revealed-how-an-irish-soldier-saved-hitlers-life-2286637.html

You probably saw that in the indo recently but there is also this story
The First World War was in its last hours, millions of soldiers on both sides were dead and those who fought on knew the end was near, as did English Private Henry Tandey who served with the Duke of Wellington's Regiment.
In September of 1918, on the French battlefield of Marcoing, he won the Victoria Cross for bravery, one of many medals the 27 year old would win during the 'war to end all wars.' As the battle of Marcoing raged, Allied and German forces engaged in bitter hand to hand combat. The defining moment for Private Tandey and world history came when a wounded German limped directly into his line of fire.
"I took aim but couldn't shoot a wounded man," said Tandey, "so I let him go." Years later he discovered he had spared an Austrian Corporal named Adolf Hitler.
Hitler himself never forgot that pivotal moment or the man who had spared him. On becoming German Chancellor in 1933, he ordered his staff to track down Tandey's service records. They also managed to obtain a print ofan Italian painting showing Tandey carrying a wounded Allied soldier on his back, which Hitler hung with pride on the wall at his mountain top retreat at Berchtesgaden. He showed the print to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain during his historic visit in 1938 and explained its special significance.
The Führer seized that occasion to have his personal gratitude relayed to Tandey, which Chamberlain conveyed via telephone on his return to London from that most fateful trip.
Henry Tandey left military service before the start of World War II and worked as a security guard in Coventry. His "good deed" haunted him for the rest of his life, especially as Nazi bombers destroyed Coventry in 1940 and London burned day and night during the Blitz.
"If only I had known what he would turn out to be. When I saw all the people, woman and children, he had killed and wounded I was sorry to God I let him go," he said before his death in 1977 at age 86.

There was a story in the papers a few weeks ago of an Irishman who saved Hitler from a mob of people who attacked him during his early days in the National Socialists.