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When Operation Torch was launched in November of 1942, both Dwight Eisenhower and George Marshall seemed inordinately worried that Spain was going to suddenly enter the war on the German side and attack Gibraltar, or perhaps attack the American landing force in Morocco out of Spanish territory...

Suppose that Rommel's wounds in Normandy render him entirely bedridden for the duration of the war and that, for whatever reason, Hitler ignores him in the aftermath of the July 20 bomb plot. Cooped up somewhere in southern Germany, Rommel is still alive when the war comes to an end and only...

What was the main reason for the utterly lopsided victory of the U.S.-lead coalition over Iraq in the 1991 Persian Gulf War? Was it superior technology? Was it superior leadership and tactics? Or was it Iraqi incompetence? Obviously all three of these factors played a role, but which was the...

On May 17, 1940, while leading his armored unit in a counter attack against the Germans at the Battle of Montcornet, the command vehicle of Charles de Gaulle is struck by a shell fired by a German 88mm anti-tank gun and he is blown to pieces. Consequences?

How would George Patton be remembered today if, for whatever reason, the movie Patton had never been made?

Suppose that Germany and Italy asked Spain to allow them to use airfields in the Balearic Islands during the Second World War, similar to the manner in which Portugal allowed the Allies the use of the Azores, and the Spanish had agreed. Would this have been sufficient to trigger an Allied...

What if Julius Caesar had been crushed by his old lieutenant Titus Labienus at the Battle of Ruspina in 46 BC? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ruspina

(Lots of D-Day threads, but don't see this one often. Search only brings up one result from years ago, which didn't get much response.) In the middle of Rick Atkinson's wonderful The Day of Battle, the second volume of the Liberation Trilogy, which covers the war in Sicily and Italy in 1943/44...

Assume that the either of the 1983 nuclear close-calls (the Able Archer incident or the false alarm spotted by Stanislav Petrov) and the went bad and there was a full nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union. Would the United States government survive in any meaningful...

A "metonym" is a word associated with a particular institution that is used in place of it. For example, "The Pentagon" in place of the United States Department of Defense, "Brussels" in place of the European Union, or "Hollywood" in place of the American film industry, and "The City" in place...

We talk a lot about scenarios in the Allies can lose the First World War, so here's a different spin on the question. How could Germany and Austria-Hungary be decisively defeated - not a status quo ante bellum agreement, but a clear and unambiguous defeat - before 1918?

Patrick Henry famously refused to serve as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, saying that he "smelled a rat". Later on, he became one of the most ferocious opponents of ratification of the Constitution, rallying the Anti-Federalist forces at the Virginia ratification convention and...

Suppose that the Germans had been able to capture Moscow before the end of 1941. How serious a blow would this have been to the Soviet Union?

Was Germany doomed to defeat in the First World War by January 1, 1918, or did it still have a chance of victory?

Suppose that, due to the political chips falling differently in Kentucky during the volatile time of 1860-61, that Kentucky secedes and joins the Confederacy in April of 1861 along with the other "Upper South" states and thereafter supports the Confederate war effort with pretty much the same...

(Reposted from my author's blog) One of the most fascinating episodes of the American Civil War was Jubal Early's Raid on Washington. It really should be made into a movie, as it has an amazing cast of characters and a plot of epic drama. It also has led generations of Civil War buffs to ask...

If the Union loses the Civil War, would the United States move its capital from Washington City to some other place?

What would be the impact if, due to technical or administrative mishaps, the introduction of the P-51 Mustang was delayed for four months? So, instead of entering combat in the winter of 1943-44, they did not enter combat until the spring of 1944.

Suppose that the diplomatic absurdities that preceded the Franco-Prussian War fail to take place and that there is no conflict between France and the German states for some time. In that case, how does German unification play out? Was the process too far along to be stopped by that point, or...

Suppose that, roundabouts the beginning of 50 BC, Pompey the Great slips while walking down a flight of stairs, hits his head, and dies. What happens?