What If: The English prevailed at the Battle of Ashingdon?

By the year 1016, the English (Anglo-Saxons) found themselves in danger of once again falling under the yoke of the Norse after enjoying a century of freedom and security thanks to the victories of Alfred the Great and his children. A number of internal conflicts (including the temporary division of England between brothers Edwy and Edgar the Peaceable until the former's death in 959 and the assassination of Edgar's eldest son Edward the Martyr by his second wife Ælfthryth in 978) and the reign of a weak king in Æthelred the Unready, son of Ælfthryth and Edward the Martyr's younger half-brother, made the kingdom much easier pickings for the Norse, particularly the Danish. Æthelred at first paid the Danes tribute ('Danegeld') to stay away from his shores, but when he tried to renege on this agreement and massacre Danish settlers in England on St. Brice's Day in 1002, the Danish king Sweyn Forkbeard invaded England several times and finally succeeded in overrunning the country in 1013, forcing Æthelred to flee abroad.

When Sweyn died in 1014, Æthelred was able to engineer his own restoration to the English throne with the aid of loyal nobles. He died two years later and was succeeded by his second son Edmund Ironside, who had established himself as a formidable warrior and had even previously revolted against Æthelred. Sweyn's son Canute battled Edmund for control of England and eventually scored a decisive victory over the English at the Battle of Ashingdon ('Assandun'), 18 October 1016, thanks in no small part to the treachery of one of Edmund's vassals: Eadric Streona, ealdorman of Mercia. The two kings divided England, with Edmund controlling only Wessex, and promised that whoever lived longer would inherit the other's kingdom; conveniently for Canute, Edmund died on 30 November that year, allowing him to take over all of England for his 'North Sea Empire'.

Due to the Battle of Ashingdon the House of Wessex or 'Cerdicings', as England's first dynasty was known, lost its grip on the English throne and never quite recovered: Edmund's younger brother Edward the Confessor regained his family's crown after the deaths of Canute and his heirs, but was unable to keep it in the family - after his death, Harold Godwinson (whose father Godwin had benefited tremendously from his opportunistic loyalty to Canute and arranged the death of Alfred Æþeling, another of Edmund and Edward's brothers, in 1037) was elected King ahead of the young Cerdicing heir, Edmund Ironside's grandson Edgar Æþeling. Godwinson went on to lose the Battle of Hastings in 1066, bringing the Anglo-Saxon period to an end.

But what if...Edmund Ironside had prevailed at the Battle of Ashingdon? Say that Eadric Streona never gets a chance to betray his overlord. Perhaps his treachery is discovered in time and Edmund relieves him of his head before the battle begins, or he changes his mind and stays loyal, or he is simply thrown from his horse in an accident and dies while en route to the battlefield. The important thing is that, without his betrayal, Edmund manages to decisively defeat Canute: historically, Ashingdon was an extremely close and hard-fought battle, and could have gone either way if not for Streona's ill-timed change of allegiance.

If Edmund were to emerge triumphant, he would be left not only master of the battlefield around Ashingdon, but undisputed ruler of England as well. The Danes certainly would not be in a position to try invading England again any time soon: Canute may even die in this battle and thus leave Denmark in the hands of his newborn sons Sweyn and Harald, but even if he survives it will take many years for him to rebuild his forces for a second try at the British Isles - if he even bothers with such an expedition, instead of refocusing his gaze on much nearer potential conquests in Norway and Sweden.

So what are the long-term effects? Firstly, without the Danish conquest and resulting instability, the House of Wessex would have renewed the security of its hold on the English crown. Edmund Ironside could reasonably expect to enjoy a long and prosperous reign: as a renowned warrior and commander, he would have been of a strong physical constitution, and his father Æthelred and brother Edward lived into their 50s and 60s, respectively, before dying of natural causes. Moreover, with the Danish threat neutralized and no domestic enemies with the strength to seriously oppose him left (not even Eadric Streona), he would be able to preside over England's peaceful recovery from the past decades of turmoil and invasion for at least a few years, perhaps a decade or two if Canute is either dead or loses all interest in attacking England.

Without the reign of Edward the Confessor (who was half-Norman and invited many Normans to fill prominent offices all around England), the Normans do not gain a significant foothold in England. Moreover, without the Confessor's pro-Norman policy and supposed favoring of William of Normandy (the historical Conqueror) as his rightful heir, the Normans would have no justification to attack an England ruled by Edmund Ironside's descendants. Therefore, the Norman Conquest as we know it could not happen.

Godwin, the father of the historical King Harold and his brothers, would not have aligned himself with the Danes in a world where Edmund Ironside won Ashingdon, but instead remained loyal to the House of Wessex. A consummate opportunist and intriguer of boundless ambition who historically managed to elevate himself from a minor thane to 'most powerful man in England' (arguably more-so than his overlord, Edward the Confessor) by the end of his life, this timeline's Godwin would have played up his adherence to Edmund's eldest brother Athelstan as a sign of his loyalty to the Cerdicings. If Eadric Streona's treachery was undone in a way that resulted in Streona's death and/or disgrace, Godwin may be in a position to snap up the earldom of Mercia, especially if the rest of the Saxon high nobility takes as bad a beating at Ashingdon as it did historically. Furthermore, Godwin would not marry Canute's sister-in-law Gyda Thorkilsdottir, but instead go for one of Edmund's widowed sisters if their noble husbands died their historical deaths in 1016; either Ælfgifu, widow of Earl Uhtred of Northumbria, or Wulfhild, widow of Earl Ulfcytel Snilingr of East Anglia. Either way, he has a chance at becoming one of the most powerful men in England as he did historically (just without Wessex itself, which would surely remain a royal demesne in this timeline), and his children or grandchildren could then have the power to make their own play for the throne down the road.

Without a Norse or Norman conquest, Anglo-Saxon culture and administration would survive for much longer. The English aristocracy was already gaining power during the infighting of the 10th century and the weak reign of Æthelred, and while they were historically suppressed and kept in check by Canute, none of that happens without his conquest. As Edmund Ironside will require their support in warding off future Norse threats in the middle to long term and thus not want to 'rock the boat' domestically, the surviving Saxon high nobility would gain even more importance, and we may see the ealdormanries (earldoms) of England become hereditary, autonomous lordships of significant power similar to the French and German peerages on the continent. Trade and political contact with France and the Holy Roman Empire would mean foreign influence on the development of Anglo-Saxon feudalism, but with far more native characteristics being retained due to a lack of a Norman Conquest to completely uproot Anglo-Saxon nobles and traditions: this likely means a longer survival of slavery in England and the emergence of 'bordar' and 'cottarii' (cottager) sub-classes of serfs.

Finally, the Old English language would not have come under Norman or (well, even more) Norse influence, and remained the most widely spoken language in the kingdom with Latin being retained for ecclesiastical and aristocratic usage.

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Thank you for reading all the way to the conclusion! If you like what you've just read, then by all means, please leave a comment. For that matter, if you don't like what you read, leave a comment anyway. I would be happy to receive any questions, suggestions or (civil) criticism you might have.

What If: America breaks down along state lines?

Not feeling too great today, I've got a sore throat and it hurts just to talk or swallow even water. Still, I like sticking to schedules, so here comes the second entry on this blog on a Friday, as I laid out in my first ever post. You can probably already guess what it's going to be about from the title.

When it first gained independence from Britain in the aftermath of the American Revolutionary War in 1781, the United States were not quite as united as they would be by the end of the decade. There was no Constitution: instead, under the original Articles of Confederation the 'country' was essentially a loose league of quasi-independent mini-countries (it's all in the name: 'state' is usually synonymous with 'country'), with a federal government consisting of one Congress that was so ineffective it might as well not have existed at all.

Naturally, this state of affairs could not last. The ramshackle government that was the Congress of the Confederation had no ability to levy a tax (it had to request money from the states); could not regulate interstate commerce (meaning that each state ran up its own separate debts and made its own trade agreements); could not fund a proper military as a result of its constant lack of funds; caused severe inflation that made the Continental Dollar worthless when it did try to print more money; and was unable to stand up to foreign powers due to all of these problems, which meant that among other things the British maintained a military presence on the officially American side of the border up north and Spain extracted the unfavorable Jay-Gardoqui Treaty of 1786 (banning Americans from navigating the Mississippi River for 25 years).

Still, perhaps the worst development stemming from the Articles of Confederation was none of the above, but rather the tendency for the states to fight amongst themselves over territory and resources. For example, Connecticut and Pennsylvania intermittently warred with each other (the 'Pennamite Wars') over the Wyoming Valley on the northern Susquehanna River between 1769 and 1799 and actually got worse after the War of Independence, with Vermont entering the conflict on Connecticut's side until Congress ruled in favor of Pennsylvania's claim to the territory. The disconnect between central state governments & frontier communities and the latter's dissatisfaction with the former resulted in the latter rebelling or trying to secede at times: Shays' Rebellion in Massachusetts 1786-87 and the emergence of the 'State of Franklin' (1784-88) in what is now eastern Tennessee was an especially prominent example of this occurring. Even after the Constitution was ratified, territorial disputes and frontier uprisings continued to threaten the USA into the early 19th century, with examples such as the three-way 'Walton War' between the Carolinas and Georgia in 1804-18, the Toledo War between Ohio and Michigan in the 1830s, and a tax revolt called the Whiskey Rebellion requiring a 13,000-strong force led by George Washington himself to be put down in 1791-94.

Eventually, this state of affairs was ended by the adoption of the Constitution, creating a functioning federal government and keeping the United States...well, united into the 19th century, where it took its first steps towards becoming a great power on the global stage.

But what if...the Constitution never came to pass, and instead the various states deemed their great experiment to be a failure & went their separate ways? With the dissolution of the United States, where there was two countries - including the Vermont Republic, which was technically independent until 1791 - there are now 14. Where does America go from here?

Firstly, we will likely see two large blocs form in the north and south. Up north, the New England states and New York will find it in their interest to enter a coalition to deter potential British aggression; defend themselves from other states, such as Pennsylvania (see the Pennamite Wars above); and reinforce their shared commercial interests, being a collection of maritime states dominated by big merchants. Down south, the states of the Old South from Maryland and Virginia down to Georgia are likely to do the same, this time to counter the specter of Spanish aggression and effectively coordinate efforts against poor white rebels on the frontiers or slave rebels within their borders.

In due time, these coalitions will likely evolve into proper nations, built on the shared cultures and economic systems of the states that comprise them: the Northeast would be on the road to becoming a centralized, naval-oriented republic dominated by ever-more-powerful business magnates as envisioned by Alexander Hamilton, while the Southeast moves towards an aristocratic republic ruled by and for the planter elite with a small middle class surviving in the big cities (such as Richmond and New Bern) and the majority of the population being either white peons, little better than serfs, or black slaves. The Northeast is likely to absorb Pennsylvania and New Jersey, while both nations will face continued resistance from poor white frontiersmen out west that may eventually give rise to a third power: an Appalachian nation of yeoman farmers that is essentially Thomas Jefferson's dream brought to life, agrarian but democratic and with little opportunity to be particularly racist due to having a much smaller black population than the Old South.

Further west, the Great Lakes area may well never be colonized by American settlers, as the disunited states of America would lack the strength to expel Tecumseh's Native American confederacy and their British backers (and the Northeasterners, owing to their trade connections to Britain, would be even more vehemently opposed to taking action against the British). Thus, unless the British withdraw support for them at an inopportune time, we would see the emergence of a Native American state in Ohio, Michigan and Indiana. If the British do drop support for Tecumseh and his people, the Great Lakes could still be overrun by American colonists at a later date, though as they would have settled these territories much later than the original frontier settlements in the Appalachians, these Midwestern colonists may be a much more mixed bunch than the Scots-Irish Appalachians (especially if they include large quantities of immigrants from Europe) and be less inclined to stick together as one country, meaning we will probably see the emergence of multiple smaller states (a Republic of Ohio, a Republic of Michigan, etc.) there.

So what are the long-term effects? Well firstly, much of the western half of the United States would not be settled, at least not by the various American peoples of this timeline. At most, they might be able to break into the sparsely-populated and controlled territory of the Louisiana Purchase, and even that would likely break up into many smaller countries for the same reasons that a successfully colonized Midwest would.

Down south, without American support Texas would either not exist or (in case the Mexicans are still stuck with the leadership of Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, one of the worst generals ever in modern history) be much smaller, unable to expand beyond the Nueces River as it was historically.

Britain would have a free hand to settle all of Oregon, while California and the American southwest would remain under Mexican authority with no united America around to seriously contest any of this. If the butterfly effect fails to prevent the emergence of the Mormons and they are still persecuted across the disunited states of the East to the point where they flee to Utah, they may become the westernmost outpost of American settlement.

Slavery will still not be abolished peacefully, as the advent of the cotton gin makes the practice far too lucrative to let go (much as it did historically) and the South has no federal government to fear. Moreover, the Southern planter elite would still find promoting a racial divide between poor whites and black slaves to be in their interest, preventing these two marginalized and impoverished groups from allying against their mutual overlords. If abolitionism still takes hold in the Northeast, an Underground Railroad would have much closer 'stations' for slaves to finish their journey at: instead of voyaging to Canada, they could 'get off their train' in Pennsylvania or New York. In case the two nations come to blows (perhaps the South sends slave-catchers up north in violation of Northeastern sovereignty, or the Northeast supports slave rebellions south of the border), the South would have a stronger chance of winning early battles and wars before industrialization - a development much more likely to be supported by the Northeast's business tycoons than the agrarian planter aristocracy of the South - greatly expands the divide between the two's wartime strength.

Could a movement or individual emerge to reunite America? Possibly. But they would most likely only emerge in the lands of the original Thirteen Colonies, where there would be any memory of a United States at all: that means in the Northeast, the Appalachians or the South. Even if they prove successful, this 'America' would have little to no power beyond the Appalachians, unless their leaders make the decision to push westward and expand into lands that were never really 'American' and where the people are either Native Americans, foreigners (ex. Mexicans, British and so on) or think of themselves as 'Ohioans', 'Missourians', etc. rather than proper Americans.

Colonialism, at least the variety practiced by the European powers, would remain a much stronger force in the Western Hemisphere without the Monroe Doctrine. Britain, France and Spain would have a much freer hand in manipulating and harassing the Latin American states (if they even emerge, instead of remaining Spanish colonies owing to the butterfly effect). Spain would also likely succeed in holding on to its last colonies, Cuba and the Philippines, with no united America having the strength to wrest these lands from its control.

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Thank you for reading all the way to the conclusion! If you like what you've just read, then by all means, please leave a comment. For that matter, if you don't like what you read, leave a comment anyway. I would be happy to receive any questions, suggestions or (civil) criticism you might have.

What If: The Empire of Majapahit did not decline?

The Sun of Majapahit (Surya Majapahit), the empire's emblem depicting an arrangement of Hindu deities

The Majapahit Empire (Kerajaan Majapahit in Indonesian) was the second major maritime empire based out of present-day Indonesia after the smaller Srivijaya (650-1377) and the largest empire to have existed in Southeast Asia, first emerging in 1293. It grew out of the Javanese kingdom of Singhasari, whose penultimate king Kertanegara was the father-in-law of Majapahit's founder Raden Wijaya: he is famous for taking advantage of a Mongol invasion of Java to oust his overlord, Singhasari's last king Jayakatwang who had usurped the throne from Kertanegara, and then turning on the Mongols to establish himself as the most powerful man in Java.

Majapahit reached the height of its power under Raden Wijaya's grandson Hayam Wuruk, who reigned 1350-1389, and his Mahapatih (prime minister) Gajah Mada. With these two gifted statesmen at its head, the Majapahit Empire grew to rule most of 'Nusantara' - modern-day Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore with the exception of western Java (where the Kingdom of Sunda continued to resist Majapahit expansion even after Gajah Mada wiped out most of their royal family in the Battle of Bubat in 1357, an act of such brutality and recklessness that he was demoted by Hayam Wuruk) and inner Kalimantan.

After Hayam Wuruk's death, Majapahit fell into a civil war called the 'Paregreg War' between his daughter Kusumawardhani (supported by her husband Wikramawardhana) and his younger son Bhre Wirabhumi: although Wikramawardhana and Kusumawardhani had won by 1406, the succession crisis irreparably damaged Majapahit's hegemony over Nusantara. The 15th and 16th centuries saw the gradual loss of Majapahit's territories to new Muslim sultanates, culminating in the fall of Majapahit itself to the Sultanate of Demak in 1527. Islam swept away Hinduism in most of Java, and the replacement of the united Majapahit Empire by a fragmented morass of smaller Muslim states that regularly fought among themselves made Nusantara comparatively easy pickings for European colonial powers (with the Dutch eventually becoming dominant) down the road.

But what if...Majapahit never entered its terminal decline? Suppose the civil war between the children of Hayam Wuruk never occurred. Perhaps Bhre Wirabhumi falls ill and dies before he can challenge his sister's succession, or simply lets the issue slide. Then Majapahit would not have entered its period of decline (at least not at the beginning of the 15th century), it would have been in better shape to resist the incursions of the growing Muslim sultanates, and assuming it survived into the later 16th and early 17th centuries then it would have been the single power meeting the arrival of the Europeans, not a mess of divided petty kingdoms.

So what are the medium to long-term effects? Well, for one thing, Islam would not have become the dominant religion in Java, at least not nearly as quickly as it did in our timeline. The continued survival of Majapahit, a Hindu empire, in turn ensures the survival of Java's Hindu and Buddhist religious communities. This is not to say Islam would never have gained a considerable foothold in Java - the 15th century is too late a point-of-divergence to prevent the arrival of Islam in Indonesia entirely - but it would have been limited to the northern coasts of the island. In time, these Muslims may have been absorbed entirely into the broader syncretic framework of Kejawen, a Javanese spiritual tradition and 'melting pot' combining animist, Buddhist, Hindu and (even today) Muslim influences.

Secondly, the Nusantara region would have been in a better position to handle the arrival of European colonists. When the Portuguese, the Dutch and the English show up from the early 16th century onward, they will find a united empire greeting them instead of a group of small, squabbling petty kingdoms who they were able to divide-and-conquer. As the origin point of the lucrative spice trade and an archipelago nation with a strong naval tradition, large population and contact with the powerful and advanced Chinese to the north, Majapahit certainly would have had the resources to resist violent attempts at European expansion if it doesn't fall into another civil war. It may even be in a position to follow the path of Japan: absorbing, reverse-engineering and natively producing European technology, particularly gunpowder, and being able to effectively resist European colonialism on its own. (there is virtually no chance of Majapahit embracing a Sakoku-like policy of isolation, however: the spice trade is too important to just be cut off and Nusantara is made up of far more small islands than the Japanese archipelago, meaning policing the waters and shores for outsiders would be too difficult to do effectively with 16th-century technology)

From the 16th century onward, the butterfly effect makes further developments too difficult to even remotely accurately predict. An Indonesia where Islam is not the dominant religion and one regional hegemonic power capable of standing up to the Europeans exists would evolve on a completely different trajectory from real-life early modern Indonesia. Among other things, Indonesian nationalism would have much deeper roots than the 20th century; Javanese cultural influence would be much more pervasive throughout the archipelago, as Majapahit itself was based out of Java; and Christianity would likely gain a larger foothold in Java sooner than it did in our timeline, as the kings of Majapahit would welcome the introduction of an extra religious counterbalance to the Muslim states of western and northern Java.

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Thank you for reading all the way to the conclusion! If you like what you've just read, then by all means, please leave a comment. For that matter, if you don't like what you read, leave a comment anyway. I would be happy to receive any questions, suggestions or (civil) criticism you might have.

So, this is a thing now.

To whoever's reading this:

I salute you. And myself, because if you can see this, it means I've successfully published my first ever blog post. Yay to not falling flat on my face straight out of the starting gate!

Now, on to the blog itself. What's this all about, one might wonder? Well, as the title suggests, this is a blog dedicated to alternate (or 'counterfactual', 'speculative', etc.) history. Every week I'll take a look at certain developments in history and try to answer the question of 'well, what if this occurred differently?' What if the Battle of Waterloo had gone the other way, what if World War I never broke out, what if Adolf Hitler got punted to his death by an irate mountain goat at Berghof in 1933...and much, much more.

Naturally I'm going to try to avoid the common clichés that have been explored endlessly elsewhere, things like 'what if the Nazis won WWII'. I'll also welcome suggestions from you, the reader, on interesting points-of-divergence and scenarios to explore - though I'd prefer suggestions that don't fall into clichéd territory.

Finally, I will do my best to update this blog regularly: every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, allowing myself enough time to research, edit and proofread my entries.

Well, I believe that's all. Happy reading and please don't forget to leave comments, folks! Be it praise, criticism (so long as it doesn't cross the lines of civility), questions or suggestions for future entries, I'd like to hear what you have to say.