Though special relativity was coming no matter what, I don't think we would have had general relativity without Einstein for at least another couple decades, li

Though special relativity was coming no matter what, I don't think we would have had general relativity without Einstein for at least another couple decades, likely longer. We would have had it without Hilbert. Hilbert got the key insights from Einstein, but he did a lot of the necessary work on the math, important work but work other mathematicians could have done. That's the difference.