What If History Happened?
Part II: Could Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette have avoided the guillotine? The scenario you propose, where the Levée en Masse (mass conscription) occurred ten years earlier and Louis XVI retained French soldiers instead of foreign mercenaries, presents an interesting counterfactual historical scenario.
“Had the storm of the Levée en Masse not erupted for another decade, perhaps we could have built a stronger dyke against its fury. A French army, bound by loyalty and fueled by national pride, might have stood firm against the revolutionary tide.” – Louis XVI
Speculation: If America Was Not In WWII, Who Would Have Won, the Soviets or the Germans?
“Without the Lend-Lease aid, the Soviets would have bled out on the Eastern Front,” Marshal Georgy Zhukov asserted, his voice thick with the weight of history. “American trucks carried our troops, American guns fired our shots, and American tanks crushed the German advance. Their contribution was vital, and without it, victory against the Nazi menace would have been unthinkable.”
History What-Ifs; Hannibal Starved Rome After Cannae in 216 BC?
“Rome may be shaken, but her foundations hold. To break her,” Hannibal Barca declared, his eyes blazing with the fire of ambition, “we must starve the beast, not slay it. Let her wealth dwindle, her citizens grow weary, and her allies desert. The lion may be mighty, but even the lion must eventually succumb to hunger.”