TRIFLES THAT ALTERED HISTORY

Hokitika Guardian, 13 April 1929, Page 6

TRIFLES THAT ALTERED HISTORY

“To consider liow easily the course of the world’s history might have been altered was to learn humility, said .Mr .John Buchan in a lecture on •‘Some Historical Might-Have-Beens ’ at St. Andrew’s (Scotland) recently (reports the Glasgow Herald). A notable ''might-have been ’ was the death of the Prince of Wales in 1612. He uould hate been a Protestant and a people's King. Had he lived there would lia'e in ii no Civil War. Had the Gi.'at Montrose not delayed in Chiitlmcn.'. instead of pushing on into Badcnoch in tlie year 1650 lie might have, met and defeated Cromwell ami ante-dated- the Restoration. If .Marlborough had not sullercd irom the intrigues of Queen Anne’s boudoir, there' might have been a complete revision' of the French system of government, and consequently no French Revolution. Thirty-four years later there was the■ instance of Prince Charlie's Highlanders turning hack at Derby. The Hanoverians had no real root in British soil. One resolute blow and Charles might have ruled at \\ hiteliall, and lie would almost certainly have, turned Protestant. i'n which case there would have been no American Revolution, and the capital of the British Empire might now have been New York, with a royal pahue somewhere on the Hudson River.

Coming to the Groat War, Mr Buchan dealt with those two great decisive factors—the First battle of the .Marne and the failure of Admiral de Robcck to force the Narrows. The latter phase was gone into very fully by Mr Buchan, who pointed out how the whole course ol the war was altered by a line of mines—unsuspected by tlie naval forces. Turkey was then at her last gasp—her munitions exhausted and the Government papers packed up. But for those mines Constantinople would have been occupied, Bulgaria would never have come in. and Russia would have kept ip touch with the Allies in the west. Austria would have been taken on our tin ii k. and the Allies would have been victorious early in 1916. What oceans of blood and treasure would have been saved 1