I'm on a roll, so I just finished an article based on alternate history. This is taken after my hero, Winston Churchill's imaginery essay, "If Lee had not won at Gettysburg". Instead, I pretend to write as Churchill in a similar essay, "If the Americans had not won at Philadelphia".
Churchill's essay speculated on what would have happened if General Lee had won at Gettysburg. I, writing as Churchill, speculate would have happened if the Americans had won in Philadelphia in 1777 against the British. This is supposed to be the background to my alternate history novel, though I haven't had the time to do the research.
I enclose the link to Churchill's original essay
Is there a way to put my essay into film?
Churchill's essay speculated on what would have happened if General Lee had won at Gettysburg. I, writing as Churchill, speculate would have happened if the Americans had won in Philadelphia in 1777 against the British. This is supposed to be the background to my alternate history novel, though I haven't had the time to do the research.
I enclose the link to Churchill's original essay
Is there a way to put my essay into film?
In September 17, 1777, the American patriots won their victory in their capital of Philadelphia, where, ever since, they celebrate that day with bells ringing from the Tower of Freedom Square.
If that had not happened, the news would not have aroused nationalist feelings among the colonies, and the inhabitants would not have arisen, as a whole, to fight for their new country. The British redcoats, spread thinly across the eastern seaboard of the continent, would not have been overwhelmed, driven all the way to the northern part of the continent and New France.
This would not have led to the French monarchy, itching for revenge after the Seven Years’ War, to support the Americans. And that would not have led the Spanish monarchy to follow suit. And the ensuing campaign, which would become a true global war, fought in India, southern Americas, Africa, and parts of Asia, would not have happened, further draining British resources.
And this would not have led the Americans to conquer the remainder of the British possessions in North America. And the Americans, after their victory at York and Montreal, would not have come to terms with the French monarchy to preserve the French language and culture in New France, leading to the creation to the first American state that did not speak English.
And the ripples would continue, as the idea of freedom would incite the mainland Europeans to revolt, in the Republican Revolutions in France, leading to the downfall of the aristocracy. The French Royalists would not have fled to America, seeking refuge with their former allies, and, in the ensuing Bonapartistes war, they would not have convinced their new country to take revenge against their former country, and, politics making for strange friendships, allying with their former enemy, Britain, to initiate the Louisiana Campaign, thus taking the territory from France. And that would not have led to the creation of the second American state to speak French.
Britain would then not have gotten an important ally in its fight to bring down Napoleon, and so the Treaty of Vienna would never have happened, and the modern European state system comprising of Imperial Germany, Republican France, and the Imperial Ottoman would never have come into place.
The British would then not have used the Horn of Africa as a settlement for British and other Europeans, thus making southern Africa the only place on the continent where Europeans would outnumber the natives and eventually becoming the Dominion of British Africa. The gold and diamond mines would then never have been developed, and so the British Empire would not have had the wealth to help the northern American states abolish slavery by buying and freeing the slaves from the southern American states. This would then not have led to the Great Reconciliation, where the English-speaking nations, formerly enemies, would become allies and, in every sense of the word, friends.
The ripples would continue to radiate outwards. Without this new friendship between the two most powerful nations on Earth, America would not have been able to pronounce the Wilson Doctrine, stating that the hemisphere would be free of European imperialism, thus allowing Panama to join the United States, along with the rest of Central America. Mexico, after its Revolution at the turn of the century, would not have seen its provinces break away and also eventually joining their continental brethren to conclude the first phase of Manifest Destiny, namely, where the North America would become entirely American.
And this would not have led to the second phase of Manifest Destiny, where the Spanish would not have continued the Republican Revolutions, leading to the Spanish American War, where the Philippines and Cuba would join the United States and become the two states which would eventually speak English but use the Spanish civil code.
And so our Twentieth Century would never have come about, when the Kaiser Wilhelm I would be convinced not to engage in imperialism against the other European powers, and so averting a potential war with the Anglo-American alliance. And, in our modern world, it is everyone’s hope that his son, Wilhelm II, would see the logic of the balance of power against him, despite his recent pronouncements and his overtures to his fellow emperor in Japan and so continue with the idealism of the Congress of Nations.
And all of this would never have happened if the Americans had not won in the Battle of Philadelphia.
September 1938
Winston Churchill
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