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Trinidad The first well was sunk in 1857. By 1914 1 million barrels/year. By 1930 10 million barrels/year.

WNT and RN cruisers Granted the RN could have had a better balanced capital ship fleet by different building decisions in 1912-16. A better RN BB fleet results from those decisions, not from changes in the WNT. Where the treaty could, realistically, have better for the british was in the area...

QE Pod - small tubes About a year(?) before the QEs were planned I think there was a discussion about small tube boilers. The Director of Naval Construction was in favour, but was overruled. Doubts about time required for cleaning, and reliability I think. A serious look at the implications...

Papa doc duvalier. The complete tyrant. Amongst 30,000 killed, he had 19 guard officers shot (who were presumably involved in shooting a lot of the others), and listed there names at a speech a few days later. Kept the head of one of his opponents in his cupboard. Total control of the...

Pandemic Given the speed of modern communications something with an incubation period in weeks or more, medium to long term persistance outside the body, transmission by contact, in the air, or from a universal carrier, and a high lethality rate should do it. A slow incubation spanish flu...

British tanks early '41 Quote: "No, but at this point the British armour is split between easily outrun Matilda IIs and Valentines, and easily outgunned Cruiser tanks," In early '41 the cruiser tanks weren't outgunned. The germans had 20mm on the Pz II (the majority type), 37s on the Pz III...

mines? The british knew the japanese were coming, had a good idea of where, and enough warning of when. I believe the japanese were not great at mine countermeasures, and may not have known about magnetic mines. The british knew all about them, having lost ships to them in 39/40. And the...

Attempt at pulling it all together.... See the attachment - it doesn't include it all, and apologies to anyone who has had stuff missed or altered. I've been doing this because I've been finding it interesting & useful. Hope nobody minds. It's also a work in progress, so as the remaining...

Another POD The involvement of the Ottomans wasn't a foregone conclusion. A POD could involve: A different pursuit of the Goeben, which ends with it somewhere else than Istanbul (whether that is a harbour or the bottom of the sea doesn't matter, except to the crew). Churchill (yes, him again)...

Historically the USA didn't join the league (despite being the principal author). In that case Britain keeps the alliance with Japan. If the USA does join the league, then Britain would drop the alliance with Japan. Either way, the decision rests with the USA.

3rd way The 3rd possibility would be for Britain to agree not to renew the alliance once the USA is a member of the League of Nations. This might annoy both the USA and Japan, but would show to both a) friendshp with USA is valued and b) alliance with Japan is valued. It also places the...

Consequence for U.K. WWI delayed by even 6 months has a profound effect on the U.K. The Irish Home Rule Bill, and the Scottish Home Rule Bill, get implemented, leading to what is effectively a federal U.K. before the war starts. This takes a good deal of the strength out of the sepratists...