What if on the morning of Sunday 28 June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s driver had not taken the wrong turn near the Latin Bridge in Sarajevo and stalled the engine next to Gavrilo Princip? Perhaps there would not have been a First World War. In that case, then, there would not have been a Nazi Party, nor a Second World War etc. These conditional statements, which alter a prior event in the past, are known as counterfactuals. Counterfactuals are attractive because one can delve into imagination while reaching a seemingly solid argument. For example, if I had woken up earlier this morning, I would not have gotten a detention for missing breakfast. However, these statements are often not encouraged in academic writing, especially in history. Perhaps if I had limited my usage of counterfactuals in my E Michaelmas History Trial, I would have received a much higher score. But why?
It is key to first differentiate counterfactuals from alternate histories. That is, counterfactuals extrapolate a timeline by changing the feature or occurrence of one event. Unlike alternate histories, which are typically written as novels or presented in films, counterfactuals are almost scientific. The independent variable is an event, or a progression, while all other features are kept constant. Thus, they can be formally applied to historic scenarios in an academic sense.
The central purpose of counterfactuals is to arrive at a conclusion about the importance of an event or person by negating their existence or changing their role. Key figures in history are often featured in these scenarios. For instance, consider the counterfactual claim, ‘what if Hitler had been killed in the July 1944 assassination attempt?’ The very nature of counterfactuals allow for many possibilities to arise. There is a strong possibility that the German generals would likely have sought peace, potentially ending the Second World War early. The counterfactual brings sharp focus to the question of how important Hitler was as an individual and how his fate shaped the course of the Second World War, and thus of world history.
Yet, the speculation and the uncertainty inevitably introduced by an imagined counterfactual suggests to some that they are useless for “serious” history. In E. H. Carr’s influential historiographical book What Is History?, a dismissive description is given for this “parlour game with the might-have-been of history”. The dismissal of such counterfactuals originates from the concept of determinism in history. Determinism argues that changes come with a degree of inevitability from various causes, and to alter the outcome of history (e.g. the early end of the Second World War) would be to change the causes too. The problem is that especially for contemporary history, people recognise other options and find it difficult to adopt the attitude of the historian as a fait accompli. Therefore, Carr finds his justification for calling the use of counterfactuals “a purely emotional and unhistorical reaction”.
A more practical attack on the use of counterfactuals is their unverifiable nature. Dealing with events that did not happen means that there are no sources to cite, no statistics to refer to and no evidence to test the validity of each counterfactual argument. Furthermore, there is no clear methodology in the formation of a counterfactual argument, unlike formulas and models that are widely accepted in political science or economics. The lack of structure reduces the credibility of such arguments as inconsistency is introduced among historians attempting to uncover the relative importance of different events.
However, Carr’s determinism should not deter us from using counterfactuals. The alternate path to the use of counterfactuals relies on deterministic approaches that claim events happen inevitably due to prior causes. Like the “parlour game” which Carr attempts to snub counterfactuals with, deterministic approaches to history become almost trivial when events are affected by extremely unpredictable and minor features. For instance, Colonel Heinz Brandt pushing the briefcase containing a primed bomb behind the conference table leg next to Hitler saved Hitler but led to the his own death. The briefcase remaining in place is a plausible alternative that would’ve changed the course of history. A deterministic argument for the predictability and inevitability of the failed assassination attempt therefore seems much weaker than Carr tries to portray it as. As much as counterfactuals are affected by imagination, determinism often introduces a hindsight bias which is nicely shown by the “narrative fallacy”, where historians construct neat explanations which make outcomes seem much more certain than they were when the event occurred.
More importantly, all causal claims are implicitly counterfactual. To claim that “X led to Y” is equivalent to claiming the contrapositive of the statement, “without Y, there would not have been X”. This works logically for X being necessary for Y, or sufficient for Y, or both. Therefore, testing causal relationships must involve testing for the contrapositive, which corresponds to the construction of a counterfactual. The only issue here is that the contrapositive is in the form “if Y did not happen, then X must not have happened too”, where X is a prior event to Y, while the counterfactual flips the statement and claims “if X does not happen, Y does not happen”. Still, the contrapositive involves a reversed counterfactual, inevitably invoking counterfactual logic. This also counters the criticism of the speculative and imagined nature of counterfactuals, as they are necessary logical tools for any argument for a causal relationship.
Even if our counterfactuals are not valid or directly useful to a historical argument, they can be of value. This process is part of discovering what the controlling factors and causes for any event are. Even without explicit validity, the application of such counterfactuals illuminate our assumptions about the relative importance of each cause. For example, as in the introduction to the article, I assume that waking up late is a sufficient cause in receiving a detention. The detention was a necessary result, according to school rules, because of this. This provokes debate and help historians clarify disagreements on causality, necessity and sufficiency.
To understand history as a tapestry woven entirely by structure is to overlook the threads of uncertainty, risk, and human decision. Counterfactuals test the definitive answers given by historians and prevent the overuse of hindsight bias in identifying causes of events and change. So, throw in pinches of counterfactuals when writing. It might not win you the History Trials Prize, but be relieved that there is plenty of reason to think and write with counterfactuals which sharpen your thinking and deepen your understanding of history.
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https://doi.org/10.1086/530560
Carr, E. H., & Davies, R. W. (1990). What is History? Penguin.
https://doi.org/10.2307/2105051