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What if the Duke of Wellington had died at Waterloo?

But more improbably, it brought forward by several decades the formation of a Second German Empire immediately after the collapse of the First French Empire.
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No.

Just... no.
 
Redolegna said:
The interesting ramifications for Wellington dying at Waterloo are what happens in the Emancipation Bill Fight if there's no one of his stature to push it through, not quick easy bake German Empire, instant formula, just add a bit of blood.
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You'd also have even more historiography with the parallels between Nelson and Wellington both dying at their moment of their greatest triumph against the French.
 
So there will be quite a lot of articles going up copied from either Jeff's site or Steve's site over the time I am still editing this blog. Essentially because this community, as much as I appreciate the wonderful essays people write here for no reward, is not really large enough to sustain regular articles indefinitely. So I have normally about three spaces a fortnight to fill.

For most of 2022 I filled that gap by writing my own articles (the interviews, the a-z, the africa series, the caribbean series), right now I simply don't have the time or energy to do that so I am going to be heavily relying on reposts and Jeff and Steve are very productive people who have years of blog essays to pick from.

I like both men and I like their essays, otherwise I wouldn't be reposting them, but their style is not our style. The style of essay on here, is heavily plausibility based and mostly dealing with real history. Jeff and Steve are more concerned kind of with creating a story setting and as such they tend to go big. You see it with the article on the Great Swamp Fight, where you get this detailed look at this battle and then you jump straight to native dominated usa, which skips past loads and loads of obstacles, and here you get a shot at the historiography of Waterloo being a British victory but then you jump straight to the most dramatic result of prussia getting more credit rather than a likely one.

I quite like that, I think it's fun soft ah which cares more about creating interesting settings than strictly plausibility. There's an essay I will be reposting later about an industrialised Morocco which is completely unplausable but quite intriguing but it is a different style to the normal slp essay and needs to be taken differently.

And that goes both ways, Steve asked me if he could repost one of my essays in return and then when I said yes, sent me an email a little later which essentially said, 'sorry is this ah, whats the pod' because one of my essays about africa says much more about otl then it does about ah. The style is different.
 
While implausible, I like the idea of a iconic British Victory Rule Britannia (also some Prussians were there) is seen as an Iconic German Victory (lol the British) and defeat of Napoleon is how you go up as the imperial power
 
I do think that there is a lot of room for different Prussia's during the Napoleonic Wars and that given the pan-German volunteers drawn up at some points that a few differences in attitude could result in an earlier Germany, though it would be a different affair indeed.

It's a fun soft AH take here that helps with highlighting the chance for something 'meatier' too and I quite enjoy these articles as inspiring and mood pieces in this way.
 
Redolegna said:
The interesting ramifications for Wellington dying at Waterloo are what happens in the Emancipation Bill Fight if there's no one of his stature to push it through, not quick easy bake German Empire, instant formula, just add a bit of blood.
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I can understand the desire to focus on your chosen area, but it seems such a big thing to not mention. Especially when there's a description of FW seeking to heal divisions in Germany between Catholics and Protestants there could have easily been a "whilst Britain threatened to tear itself apart over Catholic Emancipation" thrown in.
Gary Oswald said:
So there will be quite a lot of articles going up copied from either Jeff's site or Steve's site over the time I am still editing this blog. Essentially because this community, as much as I appreciate the wonderful essays people write here for no reward, is not really large enough to sustain regular articles indefinitely. So I have normally about three spaces a fortnight to fill.

For most of 2022 I filled that gap by writing my own articles (the interviews, the a-z, the africa series, the caribbean series), right now I simply don't have the time or energy to do that so I am going to be heavily relying on reposts and Jeff and Steve are very productive people who have years of blog essays to pick from.
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Want to reiterate how grateful we are to you for stepping up again as AEW World Champion SLP editor.
Gary Oswald said:
I like both men and I like their essays, otherwise I wouldn't be reposting them, but their style is not our style. The style of essay on here, is heavily plausibility based and mostly dealing with real history. Jeff and Steve are more concerned kind of with creating a story setting and as such they tend to go big. You see it with the article on the Great Swamp Fight, where you get this detailed look at this battle and then you jump straight to native dominated usa, which skips past loads and loads of obstacles, and here you get a shot at the historiography of Waterloo being a British victory but then you jump straight to the most dramatic result of prussia getting more credit rather than a likely one.

I quite like that, I think it's fun soft ah which cares more about creating interesting settings than strictly plausibility. There's an essay I will be reposting later about an industrialised Morocco which is completely unplausable but quite intriguing but it is a different style to the normal slp essay and needs to be taken differently.
Click to expand...
They are different and whilst both the Great Swamp and Waterloo articles have several pages of script missing they do lead to some interesting ideas.

There is room for a mix of styles and just in general I find Wellington dying at Waterloo but what's really different is how the defeat of Napoleon is seen in Prussian/German eyes to be a great concept.
Gary Oswald said:
And that goes both ways, Steve asked me if he could repost one of my essays in return and then when I said yes, sent me an email a little later which essentially said, 'sorry is this ah, whats the pod' because one of my essays about africa says much more about otl then it does about ah. The style is different.
Click to expand...
That's interesting, since I consider what's done here to be better at discussing the actual impact of changes than the What If? essays (my go to for all H, no A) but if others see us in that light maybe it does speak of the need to feature a different style than this.
Charles EP M. said:
While implausible, I like the idea of a iconic British Victory Rule Britannia (also some Prussians were there) is seen as an Iconic German Victory (lol the British) and defeat of Napoleon is how you go up as the imperial power
Click to expand...
I'm slightly reminded of an idea of @Coiler's (I think) about Irish participation in the Second World War where history is broadly the same, but for the Irish the Battle of the Bulge winds up a massive part of their national identity.
Coiler said:
Of course the flip side of this is "What if Nelson survived Trafalgar?"
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Steampunk Darth Vader

"He's more tea kettle now than man."
 
In military terms, assuming the Duke of Wellington dies at the end of the Battle of Waterloo, or even just late afternoon, in many ways there is no huge impact. As highlighted here, the impact is political. When really great PoDs come in is if he died at Seringapatam or Assaye. No British general in the Peninsular War came close to Wellington's abilities.
 
Alexander Rooksmoor said:
In military terms, assuming the Duke of Wellington dies at the end of the Battle of Waterloo, or even just late afternoon, in many ways there is no huge impact. As highlighted here, the impact is political. When really great PoDs come in is if he died at Seringapatam or Assaye. No British general in the Peninsular War came close to Wellington's abilities.
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Oh don't say that, Moore was... ahahahahahahahahaha, no sorry, can't finish that one with a straight face.


Interesting to see if someone could come up with the vision and drive to have the lines of Torres Vedras without him. If there isn't, it's harder to liberate the peninsula, and it might fall under Napoleonic sway entirely, which doesn't preclude a lot of fighting against Spanish and Portuguese forces, regular and irregular.
 
Redolegna said:
Oh don't say that, Moore was... ahahahahahahahahaha, no sorry, can't finish that one with a straight face.


Interesting to see if someone could come up with the vision and drive to have the lines of Torres Vedras without him. If there isn't, it's harder to liberate the peninsula, and it might fall under Napoleonic sway entirely, which doesn't preclude a lot of fighting against Spanish and Portuguese forces, regular and irregular.
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Banastre Tarleton's time to shine
 
In my Route Diverted: What If? Stories of the British (2015), there is a story 'The Other Foot' in which Arthur Wellesley was killed in India in 1803, but his brother Richard, Marquess of Wellesley, was sent to Portugal as a kind of plenipotentiary with the British Army. In our history he was briefly ambassador to Spain and for 3 years Foreign Minister anyway. In the alternative, the British and French ebb and flow up and down Portugal with neither side able to win clear. Porto is regularly fought over, with a battle there shown in 1811. The difference being without Torres Vedras the French would be too strong to expel from Portugal and without Wellesley's use of river barges to ferry his soldiers across, indeed it would be a challenge to engage the French there.
 
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RyanF said:
I can understand the desire to focus on your chosen area, but it seems such a big thing to not mention. Especially when there's a description of FW seeking to heal divisions in Germany between Catholics and Protestants there could have easily been a "whilst Britain threatened to tear itself apart over Catholic Emancipation" thrown in.

Want to reiterate how grateful we are to you for stepping up again as AEW World Champion SLP editor.

They are different and whilst both the Great Swamp and Waterloo articles have several pages of script missing they do lead to some interesting ideas.

There is room for a mix of styles and just in general I find Wellington dying at Waterloo but what's really different is how the defeat of Napoleon is seen in Prussian/German eyes to be a great concept.

That's interesting, since I consider what's done here to be better at discussing the actual impact of changes than the What If? essays (my go to for all H, no A) but if others see us in that light maybe it does speak of the need to feature a different style than this.

I'm slightly reminded of an idea of @Coiler's (I think) about Irish participation in the Second World War where history is broadly the same, but for the Irish the Battle of the Bulge winds up a massive part of their national identity.

Steampunk Darth Vader

"He's more tea kettle now than man."
Click to expand...
Challenge accepted! Hard for an Englishman to contemplate Nelson as an anti-hero so I created this initial draft for your consideration! https://tinyurl.com/htsx33pj
 
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