Wars where the "wrong side" won

History, as they say, is written by the victor.

I am currently reading the History of the Peloponnesian war. (as you do). Possibly because Athens was a sea power (like Britain), possibly because she was a democracy, possibly because she left lots of elegant ruins, the conventional schoolboy view in the UK was generally in favour of Athens and against Sparta. Or it was at my school anyway.

Alas, history does not share our prejudices, and oligarchic and oppressive Sparta won that war convincingly. Poor Athens never recovered her glory. (I did actually know that before starting on Thucydides never fear)

Which got me thinking. Realising its not a very serious historical question, what other examples are there of wars where the "wrong" side won? Ideally they should involve a clear dichotomy between two very different cultures, one of which (the loser) should seem very much preferable to modern eyes? Ie notwithstanding history being written by the victor, which wars would you like to have seen go the other way, and why?

Nam . Nuff said. ~;)

Rome and Carthage.

:(

The Hundred Years War ~D

Louis,

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*cough*Another one: The American Civil War.

I don't think it would have been better off if the South had won, per se, but the utter annihalation of the CSA has led to an ever-increasing down spiral in State's Rights--which is the issue it was fought over in the first place. I think that it would have been best if the CSA surrendered in the end, but only after some reforms were enacted to ensure the proper near-autonamy of the States.

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Well its nice to see there are some things we totaly agree upon :bow:

Native americans vs.white settlers. ~D

Rome vs. Germans 9ad.

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Originally Posted by cunctator

Rome vs. Germans 9ad.

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Agreed. :bow:

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Originally Posted by Gawain of Orkeny

Well its nice to see there are some things we totaly agree upon :bow:

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It reflects poorly on both of you. With the South wanting to cut up the United States into pieces, and spread slavery through more of North America. I have a hard time seeing the U.S. Civil War as the wrong side having won.

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It reflects poorly on both of you. With the South wanting to cut up the United States into pieces, and spread slavery through more of North America. I have a hard time seeing the U.S. Civil War as the wrong side having won.

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The south didnt want to spread slavery through more of North America. In fact it would have ended there also later than sooner to be sure war or no war.

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Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube

*cough*Another one: The American Civil War.

I don't think it would have been better off if the South had won, per se, but the utter annihalation of the CSA has led to an ever-increasing down spiral in State's Rights--which is the issue it was fought over in the first place. I think that it would have been best if the CSA surrendered in the end, but only after some reforms were enacted to ensure the proper near-autonamy of the States.

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The problem was that the South was unwilling to compromise over slavery, and hiding behind the guise of States Rights. If you read the history, the problem was that the South wanted to extend slavery, and they seceeded because they were not able to extend it as they wanted. Bleeding Kansas was an example of how fanatical they had become. The Southern states seceeded even before Lincoln took office. Lincoln had said he would not allow slavery to be extended to the territories, but he would still have had to contend with a very fractured govt that would have greatly limited his power. Ironically, Secessionists gave him exactly the kind of power they feared.

It was the South that drove the country away from States Rights. Even R.E. Lee felt that secession was fundamentally wrong, " Secession is nothing but revolution. The framers of our constitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom, and forbearance in its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at will. It was intended for perpetual union so expressed in the preamble, and for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by revolution, or the consent of all the people in convention assembled. It is idle to talk of secession. Anarchy would have been established, and not a government, by Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, and the other patriots of the Revolution." Robert E. Lee, letter, 23 January 1861

Most of the drives I see in modern times for States Rights are regressive ones (not to mention the ACW.) As such I oppose them. If States Rights were used for noble causes I would likely feel differently. At the moment I have a hard time attaching States Rights causes to much of anything I support.

Rome vs. Gaul and the Celts.

How can we dissagree so in that other thread? ~:confused: Some people here just dont want to know the truth it seems . At the time of the ACW slavery was being done away with in most of the western world. Americans living in the South were no different. Sometimes your just brilliant Cube. And sometimes not so. ~D

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Originally Posted by Gawain of Orkeny

The south didnt want to spread slavery through more of North America. In fact it would have ended there also later than sooner to be sure war or no war.

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Wrong. History is certain on this one. The slave states wanted to maintain their senatorial power balance (or increase it) by admitting as many slave states as possible into the U.S. They blocked the admission of Free States and worked to rig elections in free leaning territories.

Ironically, one big problem the free northern states had was with the "Fugitive Slave Act" which trampled on their own States Rights. It was an example of slavery being forced down the throats of those who found it morally repugnant. Also ironic is that some of the opposition to slavery in the North was because of job concerns...particularly if the South had its way extending slavery to populous northern states. I don't think any of us want to compete for wages and benefits against slaves... ~;)

The South had itself locked into a spiral with slavery. It had so many slaves and its economy had become so based upon slavery, that it had no easy way to withdraw from it. Plus slavery was being justified on religious and racial grounds.

The humorous part today is the South projecting itself as being morally superior in all of this.

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Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube

Of course you won't like some of it, you could always move somewhere else. I would rather move to a state that agreed with my political ideas than live in a country where half the population disagrees with the national laws.

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This is getting way off topic. I've discussed this falacy before. No, many of us can't simply jump careers because some in the state have gone extremist on me. We move states to follow careers, not change careers because of state politics. The Federal system is a *moderator* to some of the whims of states. Having to pull up roots every twenty years or so because of extremists is a lousy way to run a country.

What it boils down to is that my allegience is to my country, not my state.

The Civil war was essentially states rights.
Most are focused on the slavery issue that they forget the.

Taxes and tariffs imposed by the North on the South that would ruin their cotton inudstry, while it benifited the north, and the companies.

Slavery would have died anyway. England would have taken Egyptian and Indian cotton, and the South would have nowhere to sell their cotton. Thus they would have to industrialize.

Slavery is also a somewhat non-profitable buisness. The owner must.
Buy
Clothe
Feed
and house a slave.

It may be profitable for cotton, but it would be easier to hire some local farmboys, give them a couple of cents, and they would get money.

Napoleon and Wellington

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Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube

You should start a new thread on this.

The fallacy in your argument is that you are worried a state will go "Exteme" on you. The Federal Laws are there to make sure no state get's out of hand. State's Rights are there for the little things, like Gun Laws, Abortion, Creationism in Schools, Environmental Laws, how punctilious they might be about Separation of Church and State, ect. And all only to a certain degree allowable by the National Laws, which serve as a fallback net.

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I disagree. Too many individual rights are trampled by States. As such I oppose extensions of States Rights. I believe in protecting individual rights, not States Rights. Most of what I see are States making an end run around individual freedoms, and supporting business over the individual.

On a related note, environmental laws are definitely an area that should be federally controlled since they extend so deeply into industry. Trying to comply with 50 sets of enviromental standards is not practical, and it is anything but efficient. Not to mention that so many environmental regs are poorly crafted by technically incompetent legal types. Setting a detection limit of zero for instance...a limit that can't be proven to have been achieved.

Normans and the English. Oh how the world would be totally different.

Imagine a world of no British Empire!

Hmm,

Rome vs. Germans outcome was correct,
no Napoleon for me as well.

Maybe the american war of independence went wrong, because otherwise some people here would be less likely to highjack the thread with a stateright discussion. ~;) ~D

I agree on Nam.

The outcome of WW1 was wrong as well, another outcome may have prevented WW2...though the winning factions aren´t that wrong.

Byzantium 1453.

That´s all I can think of right now.

So essentially everyone's going to put down all the wars their country lost.

-World War One.

-Barbarossa. The world would have been better off if Germany had ended communism at its source. Hitler was close to death and I feel they would have moderated some.

Im sorry to say that 10 million Jews dead is preferable to the 100+ million deaths attributed to communism.

Also, if you look closely at history, the Final Solution was a direct response to Hitler's acceptance that the war was lost. If Germany had won the war... maybe, just maybe.. he would have allowed them to go to Israel or somewhere else, or at least not been so adamant about killing them.

Its all speculation and neither of those governments were good, but communist Russia was far worse.

I don't think Constantinople 1453 went wrong, it did help to spur the Renaissance...

WWI is a definate one though, if there had been a stalemate or an end that was less harsh for Germany it could have prevented WWII, though I wouldn't change it because who knows what would have happened...

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Originally Posted by soda

So essentially everyone's going to put down all the wars their country lost.

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No, Germany just had to lose WW1 because it was already stupid to start it.
The wrong thing was the burden that was put upon Germany and the land we lost, because these things were reasons for Hitler´s election and things he used to justify his war and occupations.

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Originally Posted by PanzerJager

Also, if you look closely at history, the Final Solution was a direct response to Hitler's acceptance that the war was lost. If Germany had won the war... maybe, just maybe.. he would have allowed them to go to Israel or somewhere else, or at least not been so adamant about killing them.

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I disagree, Hitler went mad and he wanted to kill all jews, he even made them responsible for everything. In his propaganda, they were responsible for the bad capitalism in the US as well as for the bad communism in Russia. :dizzy2:
He was completely crazy, his aim was to conquer a lot(the whole world?) and kill all the jews he could get his hands on, please don´t try to apply any sense to his actions or make him look better than he was, "Endlösung der Judenfrage"(the "Final solution" that is) means complete extinction of all jews and was already planned before the war even began, the first KZs were already built shortly after Hitler was elected, besides that, he could use their money and gold to finance his wars...

Gawain and cube i agree with you guys on the civil war. What most people fail to realize is that very few people in the south had slaves. Slavery would have ended just as it did else where.

All the jews in the world wouldnt come close to the number of people killed under communism... not to mention the fact that many historians feel that Hitler was not long for the world anyway. The resulting power struggle could have produced a much less murderous Nazi or even the end of nazism.

Im not making Hitler into anything.

The final solution was planned in 1942 and ratcheted up after the acceptance of failure in Russia.

The destruction of the Jews was a secondary goal made primary when the war went against Germany.

Hitler wanted a perfect airian(sp) race. If he had succeded he would have wiped every other race off the earth.

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Native americans vs.white settlers.

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Agreed.

I would also like the throw out Rome vs. Carthage, Rome vs Gauls and other Celts, Rome vs Sarmatians. Probably missing a whole bunch more...

PJ, Hitler invented his whole crazy pagan ideology way before 1942, however. He stilled believed in all that crap, even if he had won.

Allied propaganda still sticks apparently.

Ive learned not to try and correct such falsities however..

He would have killed the blacks, asians, arabians, mexicans, and Native Americans. He would want a white race, and the aryans would be the blue eyed, blond haired people would be superior.

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Originally Posted by Marshal Murat

He would have killed the blacks, asians, arabians, mexicans, and Native Americans. He would want a white race, and the aryans would be the blue eyed, blond haired people would be superior.

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No, he would not. Not directly that is.

Even in Russia, the big Lebensraum for the master race was not going to be devoid of population. The master race got that name because they were going to be masters of the other races in their own world (after the Germans would have gotten the lebensraum wars wuld be fought to end opposition to Germany, not for conquest). True, they expected millions and millions of Russians to die of starvation but to eradicate them they knew was foolish, as who would then tend to their fields? There weren't enough people of pure blood for that, and besides they were meant to administer that production, not do it.

It is interesting that people believe that the Nazis truly expected to conquer the world and kill off all but themselves. While the top rung of the Nazis were truly despicable people for the most part, they were not commonly moronic. Many were highly gifted people that knew how the world worked, and that 100 million (at best) arians couldn't possibly control the entire world.

But back to the point.

The wrong side won the The Skåne War.
Not because Sweden won against Denmark, she had won before and would win again later, but because the people of Skåne, Halland and Blekinge were Danish to the core (it was in fact the first places the Danes settled after leaving their ancestral homeland). In the years to come that Danish identity was shattered, until now the people of Skåne, Halland and Blekinge actually to some extent believes that it had never truly been Danish possesions, but rather had been occupied by a foreign power and was finally absorbed into their true homeland after this last war over it. It is sad in my mind.

In the end, it is true that we are all slated in favour of our own countries (yet I'm half Swedish so I know both sides of the story).