Something Old

Not everything worth reading is hot off the press. In this section, we recommend "something old" that is still well worth reading. "Something Old" can mean anything from a venerable and antique classic to a good book first published four or more years ago. 

 

“DOMINION” by C.J.Sansom (first published 2013) and comments on sundry other counter-factual novels

            I’ve just been writing comments on M.K. Joseph’s posthumously published novel, Tomorrow the World, an “alternative history” novel set in the 1960s after Nazi Germany has won the Second World War.

            Reading it set me thinking of all the other counter-factual novels that have begun with the same premise. By a quick look at a Wikipedia posting headed “Hypothetical Axis Victory in World War II”, I discover that, quite apart from comic books and computer games, there have so far been at least 34 full-length novels that depict Hitler’s victorious Reich, not to mention a number of television series and numerous one-off episodes of time-travel sci-fi series.

            I am not addicted to novels on this topic, but quite a few years’ worth of reading have made me cross paths with at least some of them. Here are the few that I have read.

            First, as a teenager, I read The Sound of His Horn written by “Sarban”, which proved to be the pseudonym of an English civil servant called John William Wall. It was first published in 1952, not long after the Second World War, and may well have been the first novel to use this particular premise; but it is as much pure fantasy as hard counter-factual. It is set centuries after the Nazi victory. On huge, forested estates, Nazi overlords hunt “inferior” human beings for sport, the ultimate outcome of their racist ideology. A time-travel fantasy element draws the protagonist into this world and ultimately a time-travel fantasy element gets him out of it. I remember enjoying this (short) book, but not finding anything particularly persuasive about what a long-term Nazi regime would be like.

Far better-known, and probably the best-known American version of “Hitler-wins-the war”, is Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle, first published in 1961. Inevitably its perspective is very American. Hitler and Japan have won the war and by mutual negotiation have divided the United States between them. Dick rewrites many historical events to lead plausibly up to this situation. Carefully plotted, the novel introduces a novel-wthin-the-novel of a forbidden book which tells how the Allies either did win, or could have won, the war. Dick’s theme is the matter of probability and chance in history and The Man in the High Castle is one of the most thoughtful of counter-factuals.

Probably the most eccentric novel I read on the Nazi vctory was the English hack Frederic Mullally’s Hitler Has Won, first published in 1972. It is also the silliest. America doesn’t enter the war. Germany crushes Russia and Hitler dominates all of Eurasia. But he wants more absolute power, perhaps even supernatural power. So he is persuaded to take out the Vatican, overthrow the pope, and become Pope Adolf the First. But this causes a huge revolt and… aw shucks, how it goes on is too silly to synopsise.

And then there was Robert Harris’s Fatherland, first published in 1992. Unlike other counter-factuals, it takes the form of a detective story and limits most of its action to Germany itself. The “hero” is attempting to hunt down one of the architects of the Holocaust, as Nazi Germany in the 1960s is trying to polish up its image for American consumption; and such people have to be written out. But as the hunted man is a high official in the regime, the detective ends up being hunted himself. For some reason (and I admit to being a little baffled), Fatherland became a huge bestseller internationally, probably the most widely-known “Hitler-wins-the-war” counter-factual after The Man in the High Castle. Both these novels were turned into populat TV series.

As I’ve already noted, these are just a handful of the many novels starting with the same premise. But only once have I ever written, for publication, a review of an alternative history novel about a Nazi victory. This was C.J.Sansom’s Dominion, first published in 2013. Unaltered from its appearance in the Listener (19 January 2013), I reprint the review below.

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            The shelves now groan with counter-factual novels offering alternative outcomes to every major “what if?” in history. Two “what ifs?” still dominate the field. The South wins the American Civil War. Hitler wins the Second World War. C.J.Sansom’s Dominion offers a variation on the latter.

            In 1940, after Dunkirk, Neville Chamberlain resigns as PM. But instead of selecting Winston Churchill as his replacement, cabinet chooses the appeasing Lord Halifax, who at once capitulates to Hitler. Nazis don’t invade Britain. Instead, they give Britain self-governing “dominion” status under German supervision. Think a bigger version of Vichy France.

            Flash forward to 1952. The impenetrable smog that palls London symbolizes confusion and fear. The natives are getting restless, as Germany’s draining war with Russia has continued for over a decade. Out in the countryside there’s a growing Resistance movement under the octogenarian Churchill. Sansom has great fun telling us who make up Britain’s collaborationist government. Prime Minister is that opportunistic swine Lord Beaverbrook. His deputy is the Fascist Oswald Mosley. Minister of Education is Arthur Bryant (historians will chortle knowingly at this one).*

            To his credit, Sansom avoids the idea of British exceptionalism. In this alternative Britain, there are as many collaborators and thugs coming out of the woodwork as there were in any country that was, in historical fact, occupied by the Nazis. Main plot has a German Gestapo agent hunting down some British Resisters with the aid of a collaborating British cop. The Gestapo man is depicted as principled and intelligent, even if serving a monstrous cause. The British cop is a sadistic yob.

            The set-up is good and the concept intriguing. But alas, Dominion is 569 pages long and, as a thriller, pedestrian. It winds up with a formulaic situation. Can the Resistance get a Man Who Knows Too Much to a rescuing American submarine before the Gestapo catches up? A final scene of piling-up corpses becomes unintentionally farcical. I kept remembering that my favourite South-wins-the-Civil-War book (Ward Moore’s Bring the Jubilee) comes in at fewer than 200 pages.

            Sansom commits a major blunder by adding a 15-page essay on his sources and inspiration. It ends up as a rant against the Scottish Nationalist Party, whom he sees as Fascists in the making.

            He does, however, have a positive opinion of New Zealand.

            Whenever New Zealand is mentioned, it is as the one country in the British Empire that vigorously resists Fascism and stands up for independent trade unions. My own view is that New Zealand should live up to this good opinion by rejecting its degrading “dominion” status and getting its own head of state. Maybe this could be the subject for another counter-factual novel.

* Additional comment: Arthur Bryant made his career as a popular historian, lauding the triumphant glories of English history in a Whiggish way. But before the [real] Second World War he was a great admirer of Hitler and had to be given a stern talking-to by Churchill to change his tune.