The Role of Chance in History : Blackadder, Black Swans and Inevitability

I used to be skeptical of the role of chance in history. In my mind there were broad, historical forces at work that lent a certain 'inevitability' to some events. Chance might decide the when and how exactly, but the broad events were bound to happen given the long term causes. A classic example is World War One. Given the military and diplomatic build-up, the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand is often seen as a 'spark' that lit a very well prepared bonfire. In a comical but well known comment in the British comedy Blackadder, Rowan Atkinsons character explains (with pencils up his nose and underpants on his head of course), after listing the various long term causes, that :"of course the real reason there was a war, was that it was just too much trouble not to have a war". It's a clever characterisation of a conflict that now looks almost inevitable with hindsight. I used to view the War like this myself, almost like a boxing match had been set up and we were just waiting to see who would throw the first punch.

Image Courtesy of BBC.com

One of my favorite historians, AJP Taylor, wrote a book, War by Timetable, in which he detailed how elaborate train schedules about troop movements and preparations like the Schifflen Plan made war inevitable once triggered ; once the orders were given, successful plans dictated moves that would flatten any attempts at de-escalation. The Great War is thus portrayed almost like a nuclear conflict, in which panicked politicians press buttons to try and strike first and avoid annihilation - thus dooming everybody.

And the diplomatic build-up ensured that anything might trigger war. It was all bound to happen, sooner or later, one way or another.

And yet. 

Viewing a recent video lecture by Timothy Snyder on Ukrainian history, I was struck by his comment that the driver of the Archduke's car did not know the city well enough and took a wrong turn - and so arrived at the hospital too late after the shooting. How different would world history have been if the Archdukes driver had gotten his master to hospital quickly and so saved his life? ( or had an heir?). Because the subsequent events led to war, we view the assassination through this prism. But we would do to remember this was also La Belle Epoch, a period of great peace, prosperity and promise. Yes, there were tensions, but there had been before and war had not necessarily resulted.

Nissim Taleb's 'The Black Swan' considers how such unexpected events can lead to seismic shifts and defy prediction, yet somehow look obvious in hindsight (which is why Taleb is quite viciously dismissive of historians and views them as distorting history through selective hindsight - though he overlooks that many such as Snyder quite agree with him). In fact, for several weeks after the death of Archduke Ferdinand, not much happened. To contemporaries, it was not clear at all this incident could lead to a European, let alone world war. Eventually, diplomatic rumblings in the Balkans got out of hand and Russia intervened, yet arguably the time and space had existed to de-escalate even at this point. Taleb has a point about the death of Ferdinand at least; had Ferdinand lived, might Europe have eventually worked through its diplomatic and military tensions? Of course, many historians counter that if not Ferdinand, some other event would have sparked the Great War. Yet, would it have? Taleb's point is that our hindsight and narrative has created this feeling by linking Ferdinands death to the other long term causes of World War One. But it is quite plausible that if Ferdinand had not died, Europe might have returned to normality and the long term tensions at the time would be overlooked by later historians as a 'passing phase'. Is our desire to describe big historical events more about a human need to explain and ascribe causation where it might not be? How much of human experience seeks to link two events as "A caused B" - when all we really know for sure is that one followed the other?

Aside from this deep human need, more obviously our own biases and political leanings too might skew our understanding of historic events. A more left-wing, deterministic historian might look at the long term causes of the war and conclude that conflict was indeed inevitable - if not Ferdinand in 1914, then some other event soon after. Such a bias might resist an honest look at the specific circumstances around Ferdinands death and the weeks after. On the other hand, a right wing historian who favors a greater role of human choice in events might overlook the particular character and culture at the time that made certain outcomes more likely. In the end, we might ascribe probabilities to events like World War One, but the idea of inevitability in human events should probably be resisted. It might do to say that given the circumstances, war in Europe was likely around 1914 ( this is where Taleb differs from 'forecasters' and historians and would say absolutely not- our hindsight ascribes a probability which is unknowable and may have even been low - until an assassination was unexpectedly successful and the results spiraled out of control).

Where does this leave us? Most historians are quite aware of their own biases and try to resist them - except when their work has strayed more into populist narrative with a political motive (looks pointedly at Niall Ferguson). My concern, as someone who taught history in schools, would echo Taleb's - that a textbook narrative that listed 'causes' might not be challenged by such debates. But though I like Taleb's writing (he is provocative and far more interesting than his Twitter nemesis, forecaster Nate Silver, of FiveThirtyEight fame), Taleb has a crude and prejudiced view of historians and presumably teachers, that perhaps he unfairly tarred with his attacks on Economists and their modeling. Most history teachers I know (at least at high school level) would use a lesson on the Great War to precisely address the issue of causation and inevitability. Ironically, Taleb hits them with a lazy broadside that is exactly the kind of generalist thinking he rails against. Historians do not predict like economists tend to do ( though many might admit in secret that one of their hopes of studying the recent past is to predict the future, however vaguely). Further, Taleb overlooks the theory of History as examined for example in short classics like E.H Carr's What is History? Professional Historians are well aware of Taleb's points concerning the role of chance in history - though perhaps Taleb is right that history education lacks enough emphasis on such. Really, any history curriculum should start with a 'What is History' module and use a short readable classic like E.H Carr's. In reality, such concerns are often only part of specialist modules or courses. 

Taleb also makes a few sloppy errors in The Black Swan that Historians could correct him on. It is a myth for example that the United States deliberately collapsed the USSR with military spending - a myth that Taleb repeats in a book that is enjoyable to read - but often has careless points like this thrown around. Historian Bruce Bennett has a useful essay that deals with some of Taleb's sloppier jabs - in particular his assertion that if an event could not be predicted then it cannot really be explained afterwards. Nonetheless, Talebs' points are a useful reminder that a list of causes is not the same as an explanation. The really useful point he makes specifically for historians is that our hindsight can seriously distort our understanding of an event - the relative importance of the causes according to historians might not accurately portray events before a Black Swan happened to change everything. 

In another blog post, I look at the fall of France in 1940. It's true that a popular perception has developed that sees allied defeat in France as almost inevitable given German preparations.( Incidentally, I think these kinds of popular perceptions are what Taleb actually takes issue with, not the work of academic historians) A more careful study might suggest that even at a relatively late stage the Allies could have turned things around. Taleb reminds us of not just chance, but also the role of human choice and error, which can sometimes get drowned in a broad historical narrative.

And that Blackadder Goes Forth is worth another watch.