Interview with Bill Fawcett, author of 101 Stumbles in the March of History (Plus an Excerpt)

I had the opportunity to interview historian Bill Fawcett who, along with other contributors, wrote the 101 Stumbles in the March of History. Check out our conversation below and keep scrolling to read an excerpt from the book.

Welcome to Alternate History Weekly Update, Bill. How would you describe yourself to someone you just met?

I suppose that I would say that I am someone who enjoys history and sharing the amazing things I discover about it. If forced to choose a title, I suppose “Pop Historian” might fit. Maybe that I am more than a little cynical because those in power never seem to learn from history and optimistic that history shows nations often overcome the worst of leaders and their mistakes… but not always.

What got you interested in alternate history?

I discovered science fiction and history spending my early summers reading in the shade of a tree in our front lawn. Whether it was Tom Swift Jr, Rick Brandt, boy scientist, and Tom Corbett, Space Cadet or accounts of battles and life in ancient times the road noise and neighborhood just disappeared. As I grew older I realized that much of the Science Fiction I loved was derived from events that actually occurred. Once I began writing and editing there was a real revelation. You can’t make it up story elements that are as amazing as what has really happened in the past. From Game of Thrones being loosely based on the equally cut throat events in the War of Roses or the campaigns of Belisarius being the inspiration for novels by David Drake, those writing SF and fantasy often use the past as a model. I suspect it was almost inevitable that the two should merge directly into what we now call Alternate History. I guess I’ve been imaging what would have happened if the Huns had conquered Rome or if Napoleon had left Moscow in time all my life. Back in the 1980s I helped put together with historian Dennis Showalter a “What If” book on WWII alternatives. From then on I was hooked.

What is 101 Stumbles in the March of History about?

So much of our history is the result not of great plans and brilliant strategies, but what happened when those went wrong.  Mistakes and their consequences are a great moving force through history, for the better or worse. Progress is never inevitable. I have done two other books for Penguin on great mistakes and how they affect history, these are the not too subtly named 100 Mistakes that Changed History and Trust Me, I Know What I'm Doing: 100 More Mistakes That Lost Elections, Ended Empires, and Made the World What It Is Today. This  new book is a look at yet more history changing events and something more, what if.

What inspired you to create the book?

My editor at Penguin was generous enough to say that in this volume we could pull out the stops and also speculate on how life would be today if 101 of the worst mistakes in history had not been made. It was impossible to resist. I’ve been doing it in my head and in discussions with the other writers in earlier volumes for another publisher for years.

How did you find the other contributors to 101 Stumbles?

I did write about half the mistakes. A few other contributors are historians whom I had worked with before. They share the view that history is fascinating and can be written like it is both interesting and relevant. Beyond them I reached out to those who write Alternate History fiction. I was fortunate enough that some of the best, Harry Turtledove, Eric Flint, Mike Resnick, and Charles Gannon agreed to join in.  Their insight and unique approaches really add to the book.

Your story "The Last Crusader" is one of my personal favorite stories of yours. What inspired you to make Napoleon a priest?

I have always been fascinated by the Napoleonic Wars. They were really the last of the wars where the man, not the weapon, still made all the difference. The great uniforms and pomp don’t hurt either. The survival of Revolutionary France was a near thing. What if Bonaparte was on the other side of the equation?

If you lived in Corsica, a poor island controlled by France, there were only few ways to escape the poverty and really achieve something.  Beyond smuggling there was only the church or the army.  The story speculates that the ambitious Napoleon choose instead to become a priest. He would have quickly risen in the ranks of the Church. This would have meant he was sympathetic to the monarchies and nobility who supported the Catholic Church extensively. In the story we see Bishop Napoleon, a fiery speaker and émigré’ leader, successfully inspiring the Austrian and Russian troops to defeat the godless Revolutionary French at Austerlitz. Just one different choice by him as a young boy and it just might have been.

Are there any other projects that you are working on?

I am actually researching an alternate history where the very secular Kurds managed to be united as a single nation and the Middle East in the near future is a far different place. They are an amazing people, and tough as ISIS is constantly finding out. If the British had just drawn a few boundaries differently or the UN had lived up to their charter on borders and ethnic groups, it might have been. This will likely be for a military oriented SF novel.

Any advice for aspiring writers?

(Beyond keep you day job?)  My first bit of advice is write, often and anything. The second is to write about what you are passionate.  Learn the technical skill of writing, whether its fiction or non-fiction, the skill is necessary. It is like tennis or programming, you need to practice and get better. Those reading you want to enjoy and learn from what you write. What it really comes down to is do what you love, share what excites you and it will show. It will show in your books.

And now an excerpt from "Bad Omen" by Bill Fawcett, found in 101 Stumbles in the March of History:

It took two mistakes, both classical in all senses of the word, to bring down the world’s first democracy. There have been times when superstition in the form of omens and prophecies affected a battle, but there was one omen that lost Athens the entire Peloponnesian War. Athens had been winning a protracted war with Sparta and that city’s allies. It appeared to almost everyone that Sparta was about to lose and just one more push was needed. But military actions are expensive, particularly for Athens, which traditionally paid the rowers and other sailors. This meant they had the best and most enthusiastic crews, but this was costly. Then one of the city’s most ambitious and controversial figures, Alcibiades, began to push for Athens and its allies to invade Sicily and conquer Syracuse. The fabled treasury of Syracuse could then be used to finance the rest of the war.

No one, except the most conservative Athenians, cared that they were starting a second war with one of the other democratic cities on a distant island. They were defeating Sparta, how difficult could Syracuse be? Everyone expected to win quickly, long before a battered Sparta could react. Athens, as head of the Delian League, literally voted to open a second front against a powerful and rich enemy in the middle of another war.
…
From the beginning things did not go well in Sicily. The reason for this was the choice of commanders. At first it looked like Athens was going to make the traditional mistake of splitting command. Both the impulsive Alcibiades and perhaps the most reverent and hesitant noble in the city, Nicias, were put in command of the invasion of Sicily. Likely the idea was for the two to balance out each other. What happened was that, due to a scandal involving the destruction of sacred statues of Hermes just before they left, Alcibiades was recalled shortly after arriving. Since it appeared that he was about to be railroaded on the charge, Alcibiades sailed not home, but to Sparta—and changed sides.

Making a military decision, or rather not making it, for twenty-seven days on the basis of one general’s reverence for, and fear of, an omen, was the second mistake. Between the two mistakes, the Delian League and Athens turned near-certain victory into defeat. It took ten more years to lose. Athens held on and raised fleets whenever it could. But the Delian League had lost tens of thousands of soldiers, citizens, and sailors, and nearly its entire fleet in an unnecessary war. The city of Athens and its League were literally and monetarily spent. Eventually, the Spartan side, helped by the defections of Athens’ former allies, won the war and doomed the city. The Delian League was dissolved. Because of two mistakes: fighting a war on two fronts and allowing superstition to override military necessity, Athens was never again the center of Greece or its culture.

Your life would today be different had the Delian League prevailed, which it almost certainly would have if its ill-fated invasion of Syracuse had not happened. Greece might have united as a nation. Macedonia would not have been able to overwhelm a united Greece. Persia might well have hesitated to make its many invasions, or perhaps Alexander would have partnered with Greece to invade Persia and change the world. Or Philip of Macedon and his son Alexander might have been obscure footnotes in books about the Delian League’s defeat of Persia. Or there might be chapters about Persia defeating Greece. If Athens had been dominant for more centuries, then would democracy in some form have become the conventional form of government, not the exception, for the next twenty-five hundred years? That surely would have changed everything.

Let's Read: Call for Submissions

We are introducing a new video series called Let’s Read. Get excerpts of your works read and promoted on The Alternate Historian channel. Learn more watching by the below video:

Send submission to: ahwupdate at gmail dot com. If you need help making an excerpt, check out these articles:

• http://writersrelief.com/blog/2012/03/how-to-excerpt-book/
• http://www.indiesunlimited.com/2014/07/18/choosing-a-book-excerpt/

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger for Amazing Stories, a volunteer interviewer for SFFWorld and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not exploring alternate timelines he enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the day when travel between parallel universes becomes a reality. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.

On Truly Alternate History (Plus an Excerpt from Dark Sun, Bright Moon)

Guest post by Oliver Sparrow.

Dark Sun, Bright Moon is set in the Andes a thousand years ago, long before the Inca had been established. The book takes the cosmology of the Quechua people seriously, treating it as a central plot element. This is not a mythology of gods and spirits, but of a technology that is rooted in a clear view of how the universe is constructed, and what that means to the average person. The Quechua were isolated from all influences for at least ten thousand years, so this leads to a very distinct view of the world indeed. Each community has its apu, presiding intelligence that is formed from the dynamics of their own behaviour. Weak apus lead to death, disease and misery, but strong ones farm their people for the flows that they need to survive. Poor harmony leads to weak apus, and so a spiral of decline. Each individual is pinched off a community 'pool' at birth and returns to it at death. Harmony and community cohesion is everything, but individuals are nothing. Today, indeed, after two hundred years of repression by the Inca and four hundred by the Catholic Church, these beliefs still flourish. The apu may now be called San Pedro, but they still go up to his hillock and dance for him.

How is an author to represent this alien world in fiction? There are two distinct challenges. The first is, of course, obvious: how can a reader be brought into this complex and challenging worldview without being lectured into exhausted submission? But by bit, of course, and with most of the complexity implicit in the story and not forced on the reader. (I attached an appendix for those who wanted a more systematic insight, and from feedback, that seems to have been attractive to many readers.)

The second question is an even more difficult one to resolve. Given that your readers understand the society and its ways, how can you build a story that grips by using only these ingredients? The most common approach is what I call "Disney history", which uses the past as a set of props. Its story line gives these to entirely modern characters, each saddled with a single "historical" oddity to their nature. The cast conforms to contemporary mores, leading to an upbeat ending. Commonly used props will include cod-Shakespearean dialog: "Ho! Varlet. Doest thou espy yonder studmuffin?" You generally find that there is a cast that includes modern stereotypes - one of these and one of those - all calculated to hit every target audience and tick every political box. Hey, don't you just love that young feminist-environmentalist who leads the noble workers to expel the exploitative, pollutive baron?

It won't do. It just won't do.

My own solution to this relies on a strong plot mechanism that runs on a clear logic. Why is one character torturing victims on a tatty old mud brick pyramid? Because he is attempting to engineer the creation of an apu, a community-managing entity, so that he can control his own society absolutely. Why is he able to do this? Because that is how the Quechua universe works, and because it fits with the needs of the absolutist aristocracy of the society that is funding him. And because those are the norms of formal religion, which is used to police dissent. One step out of line, and there you are on a pyramid at dawn, bleeding out for the good of the society.

That, of course, throws you back to the first of the two issues with which I began. How do you get enough of that universe across so that the reader understands the 'strong plot logic' on which you are relying? There is no easy answer to this. If you have a novel that is set in Victorian London, then a bit of fog, a crinoline and a hansom cab will put the reader where you need them to be. When your mise-en-scène is less well-known  - dare I say, less a cliché - then the only solution is to proceed step by step, widening your gyre only as the plot acquires its own dynamic. After a first section, which displays the plot elements in action, I spend six chapters taking readers through village life so that the strange world is put into context. Only then can we soar in the destruction and creation of Empires. One needs to show the inner working of a society through how understandable characters react within it, are helped or tormented by it. As the Greeks used to say, there can be no pathos without agon; no emotional impact without conflict.

Editor's Note: Oliver was kind enough to send an excerpt of his novel, Dark Sun, Bright Moon, and you can check it out below:

Chapter 1: A Small Sacrifice at Pachacamac

A priest knelt before her, a feather from his head-dress tickling her face. His musky odour of old incense and stale blood was rank, even here on the windy summit of the pyramid. Four other priests held her body tipped slightly forwards, and the pressure that this put on her tired old joints hurt far more than the fine, cold bite of the knife at her neck. Quick blood ran thick down her chin and splashed into the waiting bowl. Then the flow weakened, the strength went out of her and she died, content.

Seven elderly pilgrims had set out for Pachacamac, following their familiar river down to the coast and then trudging North through the desert sands. Two of the very oldest of them needed to be carried in litters, but most were able to walk with no more than a stick to help them in the sand. Lesser members of the community had been delegated to carry what was necessary. These would return home. The elderly would not.

The better-regarded families of the town were expected to die as was proper, sacrificed at the Pachacamac shrine for the betterment of the community. Such was to be their last contribution of ayni, of the reciprocity that assured communal harmony and health. It was also their guarantee of a smooth return to the community's soul, to the deep, impersonal structure from which they had sprung at birth.

The Pachacamac complex appeared to them quite suddenly from amongst the coastal dunes. They paused to marvel at its mountain range of pyramids, its teeming myriad of ancient and holy shrines.

Over the millennia, one particular pyramid had come to process all of the pilgrims who came from their valley. They were duly welcomed, and guards resplendent in bronze and shining leather took them safely to its precinct.

They had been expected. The priests were kind, welcoming them with food and drink, helping the infirm, leading them all by easy stages up to the second-but-last tier in their great, ancient pyramid. The full extent of the meandering ancient shrine unveiled itself like a revelation as they climbed. Then, as whatever had been mixed with their meal took its effect, they were wrapped up snug in blankets and set to doze in the late evening sun, propped together against the warm, rough walls of the mud-brick pyramid. Their dreams were vivid, extraordinary, full of weight and meaning.

The group was woken before dawn, all of them muzzily happy, shriven of all their past cares, benignly numb. Reassuring priests helped them gently up the stairs to the very top tier. In the predawn light, the stepped pyramids of Pachacamac stood sacred and aloof in an ocean of mist.

Each pilgrim approached their death with confidence. A quick little discomfort would take them back to the very heart of the community from which they had been born. They had been separated from it by the act of birth, each sudden individual scattered about like little seed potatoes. Now, ripe and fruitful, they were about to return home, safely gathered back into the community store. It was to be a completion, a circle fully joined. Hundreds of conch horns brayed out across Pachacamac as the dawn sun glittered over the distant mountains. Seven elderly lives drained silently away as the mist below turned pink.

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Oliver Sparrow was born in the Bahamas, raised in Africa and educated at Oxford to post-doctorate level, as a biologist with a strong line in computer science. He spent the majority of his working life with Shell, the oil company, which took him into the Peruvian jungle for the first time. He was a director at the Royal Institute for International Affairs, Chatham House for five years. He has started numerous companies, one of them in Peru, which mines for gold. This organisation funded a program of photographing the more accessible parts of Peru. Oliver knows modern Peru very well, and has visited all of the physical sites that are described in his book Dark Sun, Bright Moon.

Excerpt from Modern History of Oklahoma and Sequoyah, 1890-Present by Zach Anderson

From Chapter 1: Statehood

The Twin Territories and the Election of 1904

At the turn of the 20th century, north of the State of Texas, lay the so-called “Twin Territories,” referring to the Oklahoma and Indian Territories. In these two lands, the Federal Government relocated thousands upon thousands of Native American tribes from their original lands to this relatively small location. The most famous, of course, were the “Five Civilized Tribes”. They were called “civilized” because they had adopted a lot of customs and traditions thought of as belonging to the “white man’s culture.” They built houses, had governments, and some even had their own alphabet. Although moved there against their will, these tribes would soon leave their own marks on the map of North America.

Prior to 1890, this whole area had been Indian Territory, but pressure for white settlement in the region resulted in the famous land-runs of 1889, giving away land not used by the tribes. The subsequent creation of Oklahoma Territory in 1890 was out of the western half of Indian Territory. In the following years, more and more Indian land in Oklahoma territory was given away to white settlement at the expense of the Native American inhabitants. The leaders of the “Five Tribes” recognized this pattern and feared it would be repeated in their own territory. They began to discuss different options to preserve their lands and autonomy, coming to the conclusion that they must organize and petition the Federal Government for the creation of their own state.  Meetings between the different tribal governments set up the plan for a statehood convention to be held in the town of Muskogee in July 1905.

Out of the hands of these tribal leaders, the Election of 1904 would be critical for their plan to succeed. The Republican Party, which nominated Senator Mark Hannah to succeed the two-term presidency of Republican William McKinley, feared the creation of more Democratic-controlled states, and upsetting the balance of power between Eastern and Western states. When asked about the Oklahoma and Indian territories, most Republicans in Congress supported combining the two territories into a single state. On the other hand, the Democratic Party, which once again nominated William Jennings Bryan as their candidate, supported a two state plan, both liking the idea of giving their party the chance for two new pro-Democratic states and also wanting to protect the rights of Indians and their treaties.

The leaders of Indian Territory got lucky. The later half of William McKinley’s presidency had been rough. Economic problems and several severe labor disputes had made the country wary of many Republicans. To make matters worse, McKinley’s Vice President, Theodore Roosevelt, was outraged that Senator Hannah had prevented him from getting the Republican Party’s nomination. He campaigned as an independent under a loose party he created called the National Party. McKinley’s unpopularity combined with the severe divisions within the Republican Party led to a major sweep for the Democrats. With Bryan’s inauguration in March of 1905, the stage was set for the leaders of Indian Territory to create their own state.

The 1905 Convention

The date for the start of the Indian Territory Statehood Convention was set for Monday, July 31, 1905. The delegates elected William C. Rogers, Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, as the President of the Convention, and Green McCurtain, Chief of the Choctaw Nation, as Vice President. The delegates had several issues to overcome. First among them was the status of the tribal governments that were represented. Federal policy was to “Americanize” the Native Indians and according to the Curtis Act of 1896, Washington would no longer recognize tribal governments after 1906. There were many in attendance that wanted to find some way to circumvent this looming deadline.

Chief Rogers introduced a revolutionary plan he hoped would help preserve some of the tribal governments at the state level even when the Federal recognition went away. Rogers proposed that the governments of the Five Tribes be integrated in to the state government. The territory would be divided into counties, which would be grouped under whatever Tribal Nation they happened to be in. Most power would still rest with the state governments, but there would be judicial and representational districts drawn along the old tribal lines. In addition, tribes would have councils to handle issues at a lower level before they had to be addressed at the state level. He also suggested that “tribal” citizenship would be based upon who lives in the boundaries of that tribe, not on who was actually Indian blood. This was quite bold, and definitely a departure from just about every other state government in existence in the whole of the Union at the time.

Despite worry from some, including delegate Charles N. Haskell of the Creek Nation, the delegates decided to base their constitution on this plan. Haskell believed strongly in separate statehood, and so he fought hard to get the language of the proposals changed so as to avoid the potential rejection of the Federal government. In the final document, there is no mention of “tribes” or of the five nations. Instead, these political divisions were called “districts” and were named after cities: Tahlequah for the Cherokee; Okmulgee for the Creek; Wewoka for the Seminole; Tuskahoma for the Choctaw; and Tishomingo for the Chickasaws. These were to serve as an intermediary between the State and county governments, and would primarily serve as judicial districts. Some delegates criticized Haskell, saying that he was weakening the tribes too much. He countered that the Federal government would never approve a constitution with strong Indian governments. He believed that after statehood was achieved, the tribal governments could be reconstituted on some level without interference from Washington. His arguments won over most, and on September 8, the convention adopted the Constitution of the proposed State of Sequoyah. After approval by territorial voters in November, Haskell, Rogers, and several others took their proposal to the national capital to seek Federal approval.

Statehood for Indian Territory

The reaction to the proposed “State of Sequoyah” in Washington was mixed. The Republican minority in the House was mostly against the idea, as expected, and there was some confusion about the “district” structure that was included in the constitution. Some congressmen correctly made the connection to the tribal boundaries and spoke out about this as a way to slip around the Curtis Act. President Bryan met with Haskell about the proposal on January 3, 1906, and seemed amiable to the proposal, promising he would do his best to see it passed. Congress would vote later that month, ultimately approving, by some of the narrowest of margins, the Sequoyah Enabling Act.

The bill recognized the constitution adopted by the Convention held the previous summer, stated that all tribal governments within the new state would be dissolved upon statehood, and recommended that Sequoyah be recognized as a state on March 1, 1906. President Bryan signed the bill on Tuesday, January 30, 1906, after which things began to move very fast. Elections for the governorship and legislature were scheduled for February 20th, and the politicians went to work trying to secure votes. Haskell announced his candidacy as soon as he got back, as did Chief Rogers. Voter turnout was high, and Haskell was elected as first governor. As predicted, the Democratic Party controlled the new state legislature. Everything was now set for statehood.

On March 1, 1906, thousands of Sequoyahns gathered at the local courthouse in the new state capital of Muskogee, where at the stroke of noon Charles N. Haskell would be sworn in as the first governor of the new state of Sequoyah. The people were ecstatic, many waving around the new state flag (consisting of three equal stripes, blue, white, and red, with a yellow 5-pointed star in the center that was upside down just like in the new state seal), ready for their state to join the Union.

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From Chapter 8: Final Devolution in the tumult of the 1950s

Native Rights Movement and Devolution

The 1950s were a tumultuous time throughout the United States. In the South, African Americas were clamoring for real equality. In the West, the Asian communities wanted equality before the law and also compensation for their poor treatment during the Second World War. Throughout the West and Midwest, Native Americans wanted true equality and restoration of their old tribal organizations. In this, the States of Sequoyah and Oklahoma led the fight.

Thanks to the planning of Sequoyah’s first governor Charles N. Haskell, the governments of the Five Civilized Tribes were gradually reconstituted over the intervening four decades. By 1950, the so-called “judicial districts” had been renamed as the original Indian nation that they represented (1919).  Those nations had elected legislatures called Councils (1930), and the state legislature had gradually granted more and more authority to those councils. In 1939, the nations elected “Executive Chiefs” who would sit on the Governor’s cabinet to represent the interests of the 5 Tribes. When the Great Equal Rights campaign erupted, the State of Sequoyah, led by its governor, Samuel Rogers, soon found itself at the forefront.

In the State of Oklahoma, things had taken a little longer to get off the ground after statehood in 1908. Many Native American’s who had means to do so moved to Sequoyah. Those who stayed did not have much in the way of representation until the 1930s, when a significant number of native representatives were elected to the state legislature in Guthrie for the first time. They began to advocate for the same kind of recognition for their tribes as what existed in Sequoyah. The first tribe to receive this was the Comanche Nation, followed by the Cheyenne and Arapaho Nation in 1948. These administrative districts were much weaker versions of what existed in Sequoyah, but were considered a “good start” by the locals.

Sequoyah’s example to other tribes across the nation caused quite a stir, with native people’s demanding legal recognition from the Dakotas to New Mexico and even back east in New England. This would become even louder in 1952. That year, as the country decided whether pro-segregationist Democrat Michael Thompson would remain in the White House or if pro-equality Nationalist-Republican Richard Morris would take office, the citizens of Sequoyah were presented with nearly a dozen changes to their constitution. They called for a level of devolution to the Five Nations that had been unprecedented at statehood forty-six years prior. State taxes would be determined by each nation, police would be handled primarily at the tribal level, as would the courts, with the Supreme Court of Sequoyah becoming the only non-tribal court. The only things remaining under the State’s control would be the National Guard, education, intra-state trade, and the state highway network. On every other issue, power would be vested in the administrative zones of the Five Nations. In addition, the constitutional changes referred to the tribal organizations not as tribes, but as “First Nations,” a term that gained wide popularity in the Equal Rights Movement. An equal rights amendment was also on the ballot, ending racial segregation.

When citizens of the state went to the polls on November 4th, 1952, the amendments were overwhelmingly approved, making Sequoyah the most devolved state in the Union. Over the next decade, other tribes would pressure their states to give similar concessions, with varying degrees of success. It is widely accepted that the actions of Sequoyahns helped frame the section of the All are Created Equal Act of 1963 dealing with native peoples, which officially adopted the term “First Nations,” and saw the creation of dozens of tribal administrative districts throughout the country by the end of the 1970s.

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Zach Anderson is studying to become a history teacher  in Oklahoma. When he's not working on his studies, he likes to think about what might have been in years past, and when he gets a particularly good idea going, it will end up on his blog, the Weekly Chrononaut. You can find his biggest work, The Airship President and Legacy, a world where the airship survives, Hitler never comes to power, and where the Soviet Union crumbles in the 1970s, on that blog in addition to several other stories. He also posts on alternatehistory.com under the username Eckener.