What is Counterfactual in French?
The Seven-Years war, also called the French and Indian war broke out in Ohio valley on the north American continent, when the initial skirmishes between the British and French forces took place in 1754. George Washington, who later became the first US president, led the American militia in these skirmishes, fighting on behalf of the British colonies on the American continent. The war soon spread across the world, in regions where the two European powers sought dominance in establishing and spreading their colonies and securing trade routes for themselves. That war eventually enabled the British to consolidate their power in North America and India by effectively eliminating the French as a contender for rival European power. That war officially ended in 1763 with the treaty of Paris between the British and French.
As I walk on the plains of Abraham just outside of the walls of Quebec City, where the decisive battle during this war took place between the British and the French on 13 September 1759, I can’t help but ponder over the impact of this watershed event on the world. I normally don’t indulge myself in counterfactual scenarios. But I wonder what the world would have been if the French had won the battle on the plains of Abraham instead of the British.
At the time, The French were trying to expand and establish control over the region of the Great Lakes in North America through Ohio valley to the Mississippi delta in the South of what currently is the USA. The battle on the plains of Abraham is said to have lasted only for less than an hour. One of the major mistakes made by the French commander Montcalm was to order his troops to leave high grounds they had before to march on to the British.
Had the French won that battle, they would have succeeded in connecting their colonies in the Ohio valley and the Great Lakes with the colony in Louisiana. This would have cut off the British American colonies from further expansion westward. These British American colonies would then have been helmed by the Atlantic Ocean in the east and the French colonies from the north in Quebec down along Ohio and Mississippi Rivers in the west, much like what Quebec was. The French then would also have succeeded in expanding their colonies in other parts of the world like India.
Moreover, after the seven years war, the British bolstered the western boundaries of the American colonies to separate the American colonies from further expansion into Indian territories west. The British imposed taxes on American colonies to pay the army for this job. This resulted in the American revolution when the colonies revolted against this ‘taxation without representation’.
Had the British been the losers in that decisive battle on the plains of Abraham, they would not have imposed taxes on the colonies. The American colonies wouldn’t have agitated for unfair taxation and independence. Instead, that exact scenario would have played between the French Canadian colonies and the French monarchy. The French monarch would have tried to keep the French Canadian colonies from further expansion into British American territory and imposed taxes on the French Canadian colonists in order to pay for it. The French Canadians would have revolted resulting in the Canadian revolution. In this scenario, the British, having lost the seven years war, would have supported the Canadian colonies in their revolution against the French monarchy.
Historians have a lot of reasons to argue that this counterfactual scenario would have been impossible. Their reasons range from cultural and institutional differences between the British and the French to the geography of the terrain to political environments. But heh! we are allowed to deviate from reality in counterfactuals.
Fast forward this narrative to where we are today for not losing your interest any further. I wonder if all this counterfactual history would have led me to write this blog in French instead of in English and for you to read it that way? If that is the case, I also wonder if it is worth enough to subject the whole world to this version of counterfactual history, just so you and I converse in French instead of English.
Incidentally, I checked Google translate to find the word for ‘Counterfactual’ in French. Just to underscore my point, it is ‘Counterfactuel’, the same as in English, but with just a small spelling difference.
Ce qui sera sera! What will be, will be. On second thought, I think that it sounds better in Spanish. Que Sera, Sera! But that is for another time.