What If? - Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Today CTV.ca carries an article about succession, specifically the House of Windsor in the UK.

Look for “Royal wedding an opportunity to update succession law“

There’s some material on “Britain's 1701 Act of Settlement”, then the required bits on Queen Victoria and her successful efforts to populate the thrones of Europe by producing lots of marriageable children.

Then this: “In one case it may have kept Wilhelm II of Germany, known as the Kaiser, from the throne -- and as a result kept Britain separate from Germany's Second Reich.”.

Faulty thinking.

Muddied thinking.

NOT Clear Thinking.

Sure, it’s possible. It might have kept Wilhelm II from ruling the UK.

But then “A few years later in 1914 when the Great War broke out, Britain could have been allied with Germany.”

Nonsense.

Austria bombed Serbia; Russia backed Serbia, Germany attacked Russia and France.

Via Belgium.

Then the UK joined in. Britain’s blockade of Germany won the war.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Russia’s fear was of the British navy; Britain’s unease was at the rise of the German Navy (and the scheduled opening of the widened Kiel Canal).

If Wilhelm II had become King of Britain, he would have seconded the British navy, not fought it!

P.S. The game of WhatIf involves conjuring up possible events and molding them into likelihoods. It is also known as “ The Butterfly Effect ”.

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