7 ms·

Why the Battle of Waterloo was fought

jpwagner 11y ago
I claim that you could quite reasonably argue "we'd be better off" if you were allowed to alter any single event in past history. It should be called "proof by fantasy land".
- Bostonian 11y ago
  How would you "reasonably argue" that we'd be better off if Germany and Japan had won World War II?
  - chr15p 11y ago
    Depends on the single event that led to their victory but you could easily argue that the British Empire would have been better off if it had never gone to war with Germany in 1939. Its a war that basically bankrupted Britain, caused the collapse of the empire, pushed Britain from being the major superpower into second division status, led to the dominance of its major rival (America), and has generally blighted the last 60 years of British history. Humanity is better off because Germany lost, but Britain? Not so much.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - clarky07 11y ago
      except for the small part you're missing where Britain wouldn't exist at all because it'd be called Germany?
      - mrec 11y ago
        Based on what? The fact that Hitler was an Anglophile and never really wanted to go to war with Britain anyway?
        clarky07 11y ago
        On the front page of HN today funny enough. I'm not sure Hitler liked Britain that much actually. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9608528 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9608528
    - greedo 11y ago
      Actually, WW1 is what led to the demise of the UK, not WW2. WW2 was just the denouement. The generations that were lost on the Somme and Flanders crippled the empire.
      - yellowapple 11y ago
        WWI was the cause of the demise of pretty much all of Europe, directly resulting in heavy generational damage to Western Europe, kickstarting the communist revolution in Russia (which might have been tolerable in and of itself under Leninist or Trotskyist rule, but was then classifiable as "demise" once Stalin was in power), and (in the end) imposing excessive punishments on Germany post-war that caused severe economic problems and spurred the desire for a return to glory - one promised (and briefly realized) by the Nazi party.
        greedo 11y ago
        It also led to more centralized economies, and suppression of dissent in the U.S. as well.
  - S4M 11y ago
    Well, maybe someone who happens to be Jewish will turn out to be a blood thirsty dictator in the future and destroy the world, and that person would have never been born if his ancestors had been killed by the nazis. It's really far fetched, but one could argue lots of things by making assumptions about changing the past.
  - sliverstorm 11y ago
    You can't convincingly argue it because it requires knowledge too far in the future. Who knows what would have happened a hundred years down the line? Maybe shortly after winning, Nazism would fall to another German political party. Maybe a Europe unified under Germany would be a more powerful Europe able to lead the world and avoid the missteps the USA has made. Maybe global conquest, despite short-term suffering, really does lead to the greater good under one government. IMO it's impossible to say what the long term result of a German victory would have been.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 11y ago
  The corollary is that if you're allowed to argue that things are the best they can possibly be (or better than alternatives) because of a single event/condition, this is also "proof by fantasy land". "Thank god we tightened up security or there would be another 9/11!"
- Houshalter 11y ago
  It's called counterfactual reasoning actually. And of course you can make an argument for any event. But I doubt you can make a convincing one. You are literally suggesting that it's impossible to learn from history. Even further, if we can't speculate about the past, with everything we know now, then we can't possibly change the future. That is, you can't possibly predict if any decision will lead to a good outcome or not. E.g we can't know if starting a war will be good. Or that you should prevent global warming. As someone above mentioned, you can't even say that genocide is bad.
devindotcom 11y ago
Most of the article is not about why we'd be better off - not to say it isn't worth reading, but at the end we find: "If Napoleon had remained emperor of France for the six years remaining in his natural life, European civilization would have benefited inestimably. The reactionary Holy Alliance of Russia, Prussia and Austria would not have been able to crush liberal constitutionalist movements in Spain, Greece, Eastern Europe and elsewhere; pressure to join France in abolishing slavery in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean would have grown; the benefits of meritocracy over feudalism would have had time to become more widely appreciated; Jews would not have been forced back into their ghettos in the Papal States and made to wear the yellow star again; encouragement of the arts and sciences would have been better understood and copied; and the plans to rebuild Paris would have been implemented, making it the most gorgeous city in the world." Some arguable points, but Napoleon was... shall we say, capricious. It seems naive to think that all this would have happened the way it's put there. Still, it makes for fun speculation. If you like that, you should read Creasy's "15 Decisive Battles in the History of the World," at least if you don't mind a bit (well, more than a bit) of Anglocentrism. There's a lot of this "if things had gone the other way" stuff and it's great conversation fodder. Also, Hugo's narrative of Waterloo in "Les Miserables" is wonderful and worth reading if you are at all intrigued.
- exelius 11y ago
  For as much as history portrays Napoleon as a dictator (which he was), it neglects that most of his adversaries were ALSO dictators who did equally horrible things. In Napoleon's mind, he wasn't as much conquering Europe as liberating it from the clutches of nobility. Napoleon viewed himself as a better kind of dictator than the other European monarchs: one who rose to power through his own merit and who selected men for tasks based on their abilities, not their bloodlines. This narrative was decidedly less popular outside of France -- which had essentially executed all of its nobility in the preceding decades, so there was nobody left to disagree. But it really was a war of ideals over who should rule: an arbitrary (and increasingly inbred) line of inherited nobility, or the best man for the job? If Napoleon had won at Waterloo, Europe would have saved itself a century of war. But the USA would also not exist in its current form -- much of the reason for the rise of American dominance in the 20th century was because Europe was rebuilt after WWII by the American war machine cranking out large quantities of steel and industrial machinery. And who knows how the 20th century would have turned out without the US as a global superpower. Maybe without war and famine in 19th century Europe, there's never a migration and the central US remains as uninhabited as Siberia. It's fun to think of the "what if?" questions,
vmarsy 11y ago
A very interesting historical read with a biased view pro-Napoleon, but the facts seems pretty well explained. Only the last paragraph briefly discuss the title, as if the author could have predicted the future for 150 years. But as the french proverb says: "avec des si on mettrait Paris en bouteille" [1] [1] http://www.wordreference.com/fren/Avec%20des%20si,%20on%20mettrait%20Paris%20en%20bouteille http://www.wordreference.com/fren/Avec%20des%20si,%20on%20me...
dang 11y ago
As several users have pointed out, this article's content is misrepresented by its title, so we've changed it. Suggestions for a better one are welcome. The article reads a little weirdly, in fact, as if large chunk of it were missing before the abrupt change of subject at the end. But it's still a fine historical piece.
geuis 11y ago
Just skip to the end. It's just a long and opinionated recap of French history with some supposition thrown in at the end.

I claim that you could quite reasonably argue "we'd be better off" if you were allowed to alter any single event in past history. It should be called "proof by fantasy land".

Bostonian 11y ago
How would you "reasonably argue" that we'd be better off if Germany and Japan had won World War II?
- chr15p 11y ago
  Depends on the single event that led to their victory but you could easily argue that the British Empire would have been better off if it had never gone to war with Germany in 1939. Its a war that basically bankrupted Britain, caused the collapse of the empire, pushed Britain from being the major superpower into second division status, led to the dominance of its major rival (America), and has generally blighted the last 60 years of British history. Humanity is better off because Germany lost, but Britain? Not so much.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - clarky07 11y ago
    except for the small part you're missing where Britain wouldn't exist at all because it'd be called Germany?
    - mrec 11y ago
      Based on what? The fact that Hitler was an Anglophile and never really wanted to go to war with Britain anyway?
      - clarky07 11y ago
        On the front page of HN today funny enough. I'm not sure Hitler liked Britain that much actually. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9608528 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9608528
  - greedo 11y ago
    Actually, WW1 is what led to the demise of the UK, not WW2. WW2 was just the denouement. The generations that were lost on the Somme and Flanders crippled the empire.
    - yellowapple 11y ago
      WWI was the cause of the demise of pretty much all of Europe, directly resulting in heavy generational damage to Western Europe, kickstarting the communist revolution in Russia (which might have been tolerable in and of itself under Leninist or Trotskyist rule, but was then classifiable as "demise" once Stalin was in power), and (in the end) imposing excessive punishments on Germany post-war that caused severe economic problems and spurred the desire for a return to glory - one promised (and briefly realized) by the Nazi party.
      - greedo 11y ago
        It also led to more centralized economies, and suppression of dissent in the U.S. as well.
- S4M 11y ago
  Well, maybe someone who happens to be Jewish will turn out to be a blood thirsty dictator in the future and destroy the world, and that person would have never been born if his ancestors had been killed by the nazis. It's really far fetched, but one could argue lots of things by making assumptions about changing the past.
- sliverstorm 11y ago
  You can't convincingly argue it because it requires knowledge too far in the future. Who knows what would have happened a hundred years down the line? Maybe shortly after winning, Nazism would fall to another German political party. Maybe a Europe unified under Germany would be a more powerful Europe able to lead the world and avoid the missteps the USA has made. Maybe global conquest, despite short-term suffering, really does lead to the greater good under one government. IMO it's impossible to say what the long term result of a German victory would have been.
NoMoreNicksLeft 11y ago
The corollary is that if you're allowed to argue that things are the best they can possibly be (or better than alternatives) because of a single event/condition, this is also "proof by fantasy land". "Thank god we tightened up security or there would be another 9/11!"
Houshalter 11y ago
It's called counterfactual reasoning actually. And of course you can make an argument for any event. But I doubt you can make a convincing one. You are literally suggesting that it's impossible to learn from history. Even further, if we can't speculate about the past, with everything we know now, then we can't possibly change the future. That is, you can't possibly predict if any decision will lead to a good outcome or not. E.g we can't know if starting a war will be good. Or that you should prevent global warming. As someone above mentioned, you can't even say that genocide is bad.

devindotcom 11y ago

Most of the article is not about why we'd be better off - not to say it isn't worth reading, but at the end we find: "If Napoleon had remained emperor of France for the six years remaining in his natural life, European civilization would have benefited inestimably. The reactionary Holy Alliance of Russia, Prussia and Austria would not have been able to crush liberal constitutionalist movements in Spain, Greece, Eastern Europe and elsewhere; pressure to join France in abolishing slavery in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean would have grown; the benefits of meritocracy over feudalism would have had time to become more widely appreciated; Jews would not have been forced back into their ghettos in the Papal States and made to wear the yellow star again; encouragement of the arts and sciences would have been better understood and copied; and the plans to rebuild Paris would have been implemented, making it the most gorgeous city in the world." Some arguable points, but Napoleon was... shall we say, capricious. It seems naive to think that all this would have happened the way it's put there. Still, it makes for fun speculation. If you like that, you should read Creasy's "15 Decisive Battles in the History of the World," at least if you don't mind a bit (well, more than a bit) of Anglocentrism. There's a lot of this "if things had gone the other way" stuff and it's great conversation fodder. Also, Hugo's narrative of Waterloo in "Les Miserables" is wonderful and worth reading if you are at all intrigued.

exelius 11y ago
For as much as history portrays Napoleon as a dictator (which he was), it neglects that most of his adversaries were ALSO dictators who did equally horrible things. In Napoleon's mind, he wasn't as much conquering Europe as liberating it from the clutches of nobility. Napoleon viewed himself as a better kind of dictator than the other European monarchs: one who rose to power through his own merit and who selected men for tasks based on their abilities, not their bloodlines. This narrative was decidedly less popular outside of France -- which had essentially executed all of its nobility in the preceding decades, so there was nobody left to disagree. But it really was a war of ideals over who should rule: an arbitrary (and increasingly inbred) line of inherited nobility, or the best man for the job? If Napoleon had won at Waterloo, Europe would have saved itself a century of war. But the USA would also not exist in its current form -- much of the reason for the rise of American dominance in the 20th century was because Europe was rebuilt after WWII by the American war machine cranking out large quantities of steel and industrial machinery. And who knows how the 20th century would have turned out without the US as a global superpower. Maybe without war and famine in 19th century Europe, there's never a migration and the central US remains as uninhabited as Siberia. It's fun to think of the "what if?" questions,

vmarsy 11y ago

A very interesting historical read with a biased view pro-Napoleon, but the facts seems pretty well explained. Only the last paragraph briefly discuss the title, as if the author could have predicted the future for 150 years. But as the french proverb says: "avec des si on mettrait Paris en bouteille" [1] [1] http://www.wordreference.com/fren/Avec%20des%20si,%20on%20mettrait%20Paris%20en%20bouteille http://www.wordreference.com/fren/Avec%20des%20si,%20on%20me...

dang 11y ago

As several users have pointed out, this article's content is misrepresented by its title, so we've changed it. Suggestions for a better one are welcome. The article reads a little weirdly, in fact, as if large chunk of it were missing before the abrupt change of subject at the end. But it's still a fine historical piece.

geuis 11y ago

Just skip to the end. It's just a long and opinionated recap of French history with some supposition thrown in at the end.