>>if only we knew the outcome

One challenge in reading history is to remember that the people living through it had this same sense of uncertainty. It all seems so inevitable in retrospect...

If you read William Shirer's diary of Germany falling into fascism, you can get a sense of that (he did pick what entries got into publication and so probably removed the most uncertain ones, but the sense is still there). Read what he wrote post-war, and the uncertainty is gone.